Caridad Pontes

Autonomous University of Barcelona | UAB · Department of Pharmacology, Therapeutic and Toxicology

Background Background: Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) has an important economic impact in healthcare costs and resources utilization. Population data on this topic are scarce. The aim of this study was to evaluate the current healthcare expenditures of IBD in a population-wide study Catalonia. Methods Methods: All patients with IBD included in t...

Objective: Few published studies have described multidisciplinary therapeutic strategies for lung cancer. This study aims to describe the different approaches used for treating lung cancer in Catalonia in 2014 and 2018 and to assess the associated cost and impact on patient survival. Methods: A retrospective observational cohort study using data...

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused remarkable psychological overwhelming and an increase in stressors that may trigger suicidal behaviors. However, its impact on the rate of suicidal behaviors has been poorly reported. We conducted a population-based retrospective analysis of all suicidal behaviors attended in healthcare centers of Catalonia (northea...

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a remarkable psychological overwhelming and increase of stressors that may trigger suicidal behaviors. However, its impact on the rate of suicidal behaviors has been poorly reported. We conducted a population-based retrospective analysis of all suicidal behaviors attended in healthcare centers of Catalonia (North-Ea...

Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on health care, with disruption to routine clinical care. Our aim was to describe changes in prescription drugs dispensing in the primary and outpatient sectors during the first year of the pandemic across Europe. Methods: We used routine administrative data on dispensed medicines in eight European co...

Background: Rising expenditure for new cancer medicines is accelerating concerns that their costs will become unsustainable for universal healthcare access. Moreover, early market access of new oncology medicines lacking appropriate clinical evaluation generates uncertainty over their cost-effectiveness and increases expenditure for unknown health...

Background: Heterogeneity in the treatment of a disease is a marker of suboptimal quality of care. The aim of this study is to evaluate the heterogeneity in the treatment used and the outcomes for Crohn's disease (CD) in Catalonia. Methods: All patients with CD included in the Catalan Health Surveillance System (data on more than seven million i...

Background The demand and consumption of immunoglobulins (IgGs) are growing, and there are many difficulties in obtaining supplies. The aim of the study was to analyze the evolution of IgG consumption and cost over a decade, describe the measures implemented for clinical management in the context of regional public health system, and evaluate the i...

Early access to medicines allows the prescription of a medicine before it is available in the public formulary to patients with severe or rare diseases with high unmet needs who have no authorised therapeutic alternatives available. In this context, consistent decision making is difficult, and a systematic assessment procedure could be useful to ta...

Sales of medicines continue to grow world-wide driven in part by increasing expenditures on biological medicines leading to concerns with the long-term sustainability of European healthcare systems. The increasing use of biosimilars at lower costs can potentially address this. However, there can be concerns with their prescribing. There are also co...

Background: Recent clinical guidelines suggest that treatment of postoperative anaemia in colorectal cancer surgery with intravenous iron reduces transfusion requirements and improves outcomes. The study aimed at comparing two intravenous iron regimens in anaemic patients after colorectal cancer surgery. Materials and methods: This was a single-...

Background. Diabetes mellitus rates and associated costs continue to rise across Europe enhancing health authority focus on its management. The risk of complications is enhanced by poor glycaemic control, with long-acting insulin analogues developed to reduce hypoglycaemia and improve patient convenience. There are concerns though with their consid...

Background Heterogeneity in drug access throughout Europe may be influenced by differences in drug-assessment strategies. The EUnetHTA’s assessment core model (EUnetHTA-core) and the EVIDEM’s multicriteria framework are reference methodologies in this context, the latter including a wider compromise between non-contextual and contextual criteria. C...

Background: Diabetes mellitus rates continue to rise, which coupled with increasing costs of associated complications has appreciably increased global expenditure in recent years. The risk of complications are enhanced by poor glycaemic control including hypoglycaemia. Long-acting insulin analogues were developed to reduce hypoglycaemia and improve...

Introduction/Objectives: Health authorities are facing increasing challenges to the sustainability of their healthcare systems because of the growing expenditures on medicines, including new, high-priced oncology medicines, and changes in disease prevalence in their ageing populations. Medicine prices in European countries are greatly affected by t...

Background: Diabetes mellitus rates continue to rise, which coupled with increasing costs of associated complications has appreciably increased global expenditure in recent years. The risk of complications are enhanced by poor glycaemic control including hypoglycaemia. Long-acting insulin analogues were developed to reduce hypoglycaemia and improve...

Background Heterogeneity in the treatment of a disease is a marker of suboptimal quality of care. Recent studies suggest that there is a marked heterogeneity in the management of inflammatory bowel disease. The aim of this study is to evaluate the heterogeneity in the treatment used and the outcomes (rate of hospitalization and surgery) for Crohn’s...

Objective To assess whether there are any real-life differences between ankylosing spondylitis (AS) patients treated with NSAID or TNF inhibitors (TNFi) regarding disease activity. Methods This is an observational transversal unicentric study with retrospective retrieval of data from clinical records of all AS patients attended in our hospital. We...

Background Several clinical trials have assessed the protective potential of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine. Chronic exposure to such drugs might lower the risk of infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) or severe coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Aim To assess COVID-19 incidence and risk of hospitalisation in...

Background Heterogeneity in drug access throughout Europe may be influenced by differences in drug-assessment strategies. The EUnetHTA’s assessment core model (EUnetHTA-core) and the EVIDEM’s multicriteria framework are reference methodologies in this context, the latter including a wider compromise between non-contextual and contextual criteria. C...

The aim of this study was to analyse the impact of treating chronic hepatitis C (CHC) with direct acting agents (DAA) on the use of healthcare resources. We included all patients treated with DAA for CHC from January 2015 to December 2017 in Catalonia whose medical records from 12 months before to 24 months after treatment were available. Data was...

Background and aims: Data from clinical trials suggest that biological drugs may improve the outcomes in Crohn's disease (CD) by reducing the need for surgery or hospitalization. The aim of this study is to evaluate the time-trends of the use of biological drugs and other treatments for CD, and its relationship with outcomes in Catalonia. Materia...

Objectives: To systematically review the impact of tapering targeted therapies (bDMARDs or JAKis) on the risk of serious infections and severe adverse events (SAEs) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) or axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) in remission or low disease activity (LDA) state. Materials and methods: A meta-analysis based on a syst...

Background Data from clinical trials suggest that biological drugs may improve the outcomes in Crohn’s disease (CD) by reducing the need for surgery or hospitalisation. However, data on the trends in biological drug use and outcomes in CD patients are scarce. The aim of this study is to evaluate the time-trends of the use of biological drugs and ot...

The use of bisphosphonates has been associated with a decrease in the risk of colorectal cancer (CRC) in observational studies, but with controversial results and difficult to interpret because of routine concomitant use of calcium and vitamin D. We aimed to assess the association between CRC risk and outpatient exposure to antiosteoporotic drugs u...

Background: Orphan medicines show some characteristics that hinder the evaluation of their clinical added value. The often low level of evidence available for orphan drugs, together with a high budget impact and an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio many times higher than drugs used for non-orphan diseases, represent challenges in their appraisa...

The potential benefits of early patient access to new medicines in areas of high unmet medical need are recognised, but uncertainties concerning effectiveness, safety and added value when new medicines are authorised, and subsequently funded based on initial preliminary data only, have important implications. In 2016 olaratumab received accelerated...

Purpose Intense bleeding of the surgical field is a potential factor influencing success of functional endoscopic sinus surgery (FESS). Hypotensive anesthesia with α2 intravenous agonists reduces intraoperative bleeding, but which is the best agent is unknown. The main objective of this trial was to compare the current standard adjuvant drug for hy...

Background The Catalan Healthcare System (CatSalut) runs a specific program for drug evaluation (PHF) aimed to guarantee equity in the access to innovative medications. PHF recommendations determine the degree of priority and mechanism for drug invoicing: clinical criteria with direct invoicing; individualised criteria requiring approval by an ad-h...

There is extensive debate regarding the protective effect of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A reductase inhibitors (statins) on colorectal cancer (CRC). We aimed to assess the association between CRC risk and exposure to statins using a large cohort with prescription data. We carried out a case-control study in Catalonia using the System for D...

Objective: To assess whether there are any real-life differences between ankylosing spondylitis (AS) patients treated with NSAID or TNF inhibitors (TNFi) regarding disease activity. Methods: This is an observational transversal unicentric study with retrospective retrieval of data from clinical records of all AS patients attended in our hospital...

The study was aimed to describe if prescriptions of psycho-drugs to paediatric patients had increased in the studied period, and at the expense of which groups of drugs.

Objectives To describe the association between exposure to different antidepressant drugs and hip fracture in an elderly Mediterranean population. Methods Cases were all patients aged 50–95 years admitted to the emergency room of our hospital with hip fracture not related to a high intensity trauma during 2010. For each case, four controls were id...

Little is known about undergraduate education on antibiotic prescribing in Europe and even less about the antibiotic prescribing skills of nearly-graduated medical students. This study aimed to evaluate the antibiotic prescribing skills of final-year medical students across Europe and the education they received during medical training. In a cross-...

Background: Recent data suggest that anti-TNF doses can be reduced in ankylosing spondylitis (AS) patients. Some authors even propose withdrawing treatment in patients in clinical remission; however, at present there is no evidence to support this. Objective: To assess how long AS patients with persistent clinical remission remained free of flar...

Background Bupivacaine and levobupivacaine have similar pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic characteristics, and are used regularly in spinal anesthesia. Whether potential differences in their hemodynamic and anesthetic profiles could determine a differential risk of complications in elderly subjects, is controversial. The main objective was to com...

Objective The objective was to determine if dose reduction is non-inferior to full-dose TNFi to maintain low disease activity (LDA) in patients already in remission with TNFi, in axial spondyloarthritis. Methods Randomized, parallel, non-inferiority, open-label multicentre clinical trial. Patients were eligible if they had axial spondyloarthritis...

Abstract Background Patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) often present with associated anaemia which is usually present at the time of diagnosis and is aggravated during the postoperative period due to blood loss during the surgery process. Several guidelines advocate for the treatment of postoperative anaemia in these patients in order to prevent...

Background: Low prevalence, lack of knowledge about the disease course, and phenotype heterogeneity hamper the development of drugs for rare diseases. Rare disease registries (RDRs) can be helpful by playing a role in understanding the course of the disease, and providing information necessary for clinical trial design, if designed and maintained...

Background The ASTERIX project developed a number of novel methods suited to study small populations. The objective of this exercise was to evaluate the applicability and added value of novel methods to improve drug development in small populations, using real world drug development programmes as reported in European Public Assessment Reports. Met...

Background To assess uncertainty in regulatory decision-making for orphan medicinal products (OMP), a summary of the current basis for approval is required; a systematic grouping of medical conditions may be useful in summarizing information and issuing recommendations for practice. Methods A grouping of medical conditions with similar characteris...

Introduction: Few recent data on the epidemiology of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are available, especially in Southern Europe. Aim: To evaluate the prevalence, incidence and mortality of IBD in Catalonia during the period 2011-2016. Material and methods: Data on the prevalence, incidence and mortality of IBD were obtained from the Catalan Heal...

Background. Evidence on the role of intravenous iron (IVI) supplementation after colorectal cancer (CRC) surgery is rather scant. This study was aimed at assessing the benefit of postoperative IVI administration after elective CRC surgery at our institution. Materials and methods. This was a single-centre, retrospective observational study includin...

Background: Evidence on the role of intravenous iron (IVI) supplementation after colorectal cancer (CRC) surgery is rather scant. This study was aimed at assessing the benefit of postoperative IVI administration after elective CRC surgery at our institution. Materials and methods: This was a single-centre, retrospective observational study inclu...

Purpose: Recent controversies on the safety profiles of opioids and paracetamol (acetaminophen) have led to changes in clinical guidance on osteoarthritis (OA) management. We studied the existing association between the use of different OA drug therapies and the risk for acute coronary events. Methods: A cohort of patients with clinically diagno...

Background: The "Parallel regulatory-HTA SA" (PSA) procedure allows manufacturers to receive simultaneous feedback from both EU regulators and HTA bodies on development plans for new medicines. Objectives: Primary objective of the present study is to investigate whether PSA is integrated in the clinical development programmes for which advice wa...

Harmonizing clinical pharmacology and therapeutics (CPT) education in Europe is necessary to ensure that the prescribing competency of future doctors is of an uniform high standard. As there are currently no uniform requirements, our aim was to achieve consensus on key learning outcomes for undergraduate CPT education in Europe. We used a modified...

Purpose: We assessed the evidence for the use of α2-adrenergic agonists (A2AAs) in bleeding control and field quality in endoscopic sinus surgery. Methods: We systematically reviewed randomized clinical trials (RCTs) assessing A2AAs in endoscopic sinus surgery. Abstracts were reviewed by 2 investigators for eligibility, and selected articles wer...

Background: Preoperative anemia prevalence among colorectal cancer (CRC) patients is high and may adversely influence postoperative outcome. This study assesses the efficacy of a preoperative anemia managing protocol in CRC. Study design and methods: This was a retrospective analysis of consecutive CRC resections at two Spanish centers (January...

Randomized clinical trials are the gold standard when experimental designs are feasible. Randomization allows the handling of allocation bias for known and unknown confounders. Specific tools such as blocking, stratification, and dynamic allocation provide additional guarantees to simple randomization. When an experimental design is not feasible, t...