A challenge that has vexed health systems and payers for decades is the inability to fully quantify the long-term impacts of steroid-toxicity. Set to change that paradigm is the GTI-MD, an easy-to-use yet powerful tool recently made available to clinicians and researchers worldwide.
Glucocorticoids are commonly prescribed for their potent anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive effects. However, prolonged exposure can lead to a range of adverse effects. These toxicities impact individuals differently, making historical analyses that use the dosage of glucocorticoid as a surrogate marker somewhat confusing.
The launch of the Steritas GTI-MD in May is already changing this reality, enabling Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR) teams to retrospectively calculate glucocorticoid toxicity from data already collected in large, real-world datasets.
HEOR teams aim to understand the value of healthcare interventions and their impact on patient outcomes, healthcare systems and society. Utilizing the Steritas GTI-MD, these teams are empowered to analyze large electronic health record datasets to understand the association between glucocorticoid use and cumulative dose on increased steroid-toxicity. This provides a foundation for assessing the benefits of non-steroid alternative treatments.
"From the moment the GTI-MD was published, we have seen a striking level of interest in using the instrument in large datasets. Granular detail exists in claims and EMR datasets and they are waiting to be unlocked for analysis in specific disease indications,” comments Martha N. Stone, CEO of Steritas.
In addition, by analyzing treatment costs associated with the 80+ known steroid-toxicities, the true cost of steroid-toxicity from patients spanning diverse demographics and medical histories could be better understood.
Through uncovering more nuanced, real-world insights, researchers will be able to develop a more accurate picture of how glucocorticoids affect patients outside of controlled clinical trials and anecdotal data collected at point-of-care.
Ultimately, the insights gained using the GTI-MD for HEOR may provide useful information for treatment guidelines and also help guide pharmaceutical companies to make more informed decisions about where the greatest medical needs lie in terms of the development of new steroid-sparing therapies.
Ms Stone concludes, “At a fraction of the time and cost of a phase 3 trial, medical affairs and HEOR teams can now interrogate millions of anonymized records in robust longitudinal datasets for valuable insights that have been hiding in the dark for years. With the GTI-MD, we can bring insights to light.”