1. Acknowledgement:
COSTING OF DRUGS FOR TREATING REACTIVE AIRWAYS DISEASE (RAD) AT A PRIVATE
PEDIATRIC OUTPATIENT SETTING IN NORTHERN INDIA
Rajiv Ahlawat1
, Pramil Tiwari1
, Gaurav Gupta2
1Department of Pharmacy Practice, National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER),
S.A.S. Nagar, Punjab, 2Charak Care Clinics, S.A.S. Nagar, Punjab, INDIA
This study was funded by National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), Sector 67, SAS
Nagar, Punjab-160067, India.
Rajiv Ahlawat ( PhD. Scholar, NIPER) acknowledges “Victorian State Government (Australia) and the Mel-
bourne Convention and Visitors Bureau” for providing me travel scholarship to attend the conference.
Introduction:
Estimation of expenditure for reactive airways disease (RAD)
treatment in children can provide useful information to guide
clinicians and policymakers in improving the management of
RAD through better treatment.
To our knowledge, medical literature is lacking in studies that
estimate the costs of reactive treatment in Indian children.
The results of this study form „real-time‟ evidence on the cost
of treatment of infections in children.
Methods
Total number of patient attended OPD– 2902
Patients diagnosed with reactive airways disease 332
Study site: Pediatric out-patient setting
Study design: Retrospective study
Study Population: Children upto 18 year of age diagnosed
with reactive airways disease.
Study duration: One year
Age groups: new born (1day-1Y), toddler (1Y-3Y), pre-
schooler (3Y-6Y), schooler (6Y-12Y) and adolescents (12Y-
18Y) on the bases of age.
Only the direct acquisition cost of drugs in terms of Maximum
Retail Price (MRP) was considered.
The prices as mentioned on the website of Current Index of
Medical Specialities (http://www.mims.com/India) was used
for computation of cost.
For international comparison, 1 USD was considered equiva-
lent to INR61.
Results
A total of 332 patients were diagnosed to have RAD.
Objective
To estimate the cost of prescription for treatment of RAD & to
understand the contribution of drug classes used.
Conclusion:
Bronchodilators and steroids were found to be maximally pre-
scribed class of drugs.
Half of the total cost was spent on the use of steroidal class
drugs. These results need consolidation and it is recommended
to increase the sample size of the study in future.
Table 1: Profile of cost spent on use of different class
Table 2: Pattern of average cost of treatment
Figure 3: Pattern of cost spending on most commonly prescribed drugs
Figure 2: Cost spending pattern for different FDC
Figure 1: Pattern of cost spent on use of different dosage form
LT– leukotrienes
MDI– multi dose inhaler
Cet– cetirizine, Amb– ambroxol, Mont– montelukasat, Fluti– fluticasone, Salme– salmeterol, Formo– formoterol, Budes– budesonide
COT– cost of treatment