PMS63 COMPARISON OF STAFF RESOURCES AND PATIENT TIME REQUIRED FOR RITUXIMAB AND INFLIXIMAB ADMINISTRATION IN 3 UK NHS HOSPITALS

Background  Rituximab and infliximab are biologic disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) used to treat rheumatoid arthritis (RA).  Rituximab is commonly re-dosed when signs and symptoms return, but infliximab has fixed dosing intervals.  Results from a recent single centre study suggest that the different administration requirements do have an impact on resource use1.  The secondary care resource and patient time implications of this difference were determined in this 3-centre observational study. Table 4: Mean total NHS staff time in 43 week assessment period