Publications by authors named "Alicia Huerta"

The US overdose crisis is driving a surge in HIV diagnoses among persons who inject drugs (PWID). Innovative approaches are needed to address this increase in cases. Although HIV self-testing (HIVST) was hailed as a potential "game-changer" upon initial approval by the Food and Drug Administration over a decade ago, this convenient testing modality has not reached its full potential to impact the HIV epidemic.

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Background: Adherence to treatment is key to achieve desired outcomes. In COPD, adherence is generally suboptimal and is impaired by treatment complexity.

Objective: To estimate the clinical and economic impact of an improvement in treatment adherence due to an increased use of once-daily single-inhaler triple therapy (SITT) in patients with COPD.

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Purpose: To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of once-daily fluticasone furoate/umeclidinium/vilanterol (FF/UMEC/VI) vs twice-daily budesonide/formoterol (BUD/FOR) in patients with symptomatic chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) at risk of exacerbations, from the Spanish National Healthcare System perspective.

Patients And Methods: The validated GALAXY-COPD model was used to simulate disease progression and predict healthcare costs, quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) over a 3-year time horizon for a Spanish population. Patient characteristics from published literature were supplemented by data from FULFIL (NCT02345161), which compared FF/UMEC/VI vs BUD/FOR in patients with symptomatic COPD at risk of exacerbations.

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To describe resource use and costs of severe exacerbations in patients with severe asthma. Secondary analysis of an observational, longitudinal, retrospective study that estimated the economic impact of severe asthma. The study was carried out in severe asthma units of the pulmonology and allergy services of 20 public hospitals (inclusion period: June to November 2016).

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Purpose: Guidelines recommend the use of triple therapy with an inhaled corticosteroid (ICS), a long-acting β agonist (LABA) and a long-acting muscarinic antagonist (LAMA) to reduce the risk of future exacerbations in symptomatic COPD patients with a history of exacerbations. This study aimed to estimate COPD-related healthcare resource use and costs, and subsequent exacerbation rates, for patients initiating multiple-inhaler triple therapy (MITT) early (≤30 days) versus late (31-180 days) following an exacerbation, in a real-world clinical setting.

Patients And Methods: This was an observational, longitudinal, retrospective study using electronic medical records from the Spanish database of the Red de Investigación en Servicios Sanitarios Foundation.

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Objectives: The Salford Lung Study in asthma (SLS asthma) is a 12-month, open-label randomised clinical trial comparing clinical effectiveness of initiating once-daily inhaled combination of fluticasone furoate/vilanterol (FF/VI) 184/22 mcg or 92/22 mcg, with continuing optimized usual care (UC) with inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) alone, or in combination with a long-acting β2-agonist (ICS/LABA), in asthmatic patients followed in primary care in the UK. The objective of the analysis is to estimate the economic impact of these results when applied in Spain.

Methods: A 1-year cost-consequence model was populated with SLS asthma, adopting the Spanish National Health System (NHS) perspective.

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: Estimate the economic impact of severe asthma from the Spanish social perspective through the estimation of the associated annual direct and indirect costs. : Observational, longitudinal, retrospective study carried out in 20 Spanish secondary settings (Pulmonology and Allergy Services) among patients aged ≥18, diagnosed with severe asthma according to European Respiratory Society/American Thoracic Society consensus and who have not experienced an exacerbation in the previous 2 months. Asthma-related healthcare resource utilization as well as asthma-related days off work were collected over a retrospective 12-month period from medical records review (inclusion period: June to November 2016).

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Purpose: Umeclidinium/vilanterol (UMEC/VI) is a novel fixed dose combination of a long-acting muscarinic receptor antagonist (LAMA) and a long-acting beta 2 receptor antagonist (LABA) agent. This analysis evaluated the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of UMEC/VI compared with tiotropium (TIO), from the Spanish National Health System (NHS) perspective.

Methods: A previously published linked equations cohort model based on the epidemiological longitudinal study ECLIPSE (Evaluation of COPD Longitudinally to Identify Predictive Surrogate End-points) was used.

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Purpose: Health utilities are widely used in health economics as a measurement of an individual's preference and show the value placed on different health states over a specific period. Thus, health utilities are used as a measure of the benefits of health interventions in terms of quality-adjusted life years. This study aimed to determine the demographic and clinical variables significantly associated with health utilities for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients.

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Background: To determine generic utilities for Spanish chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients stratified by different classifications: GOLD 2007, GOLD 2013, GesEPOC 2012 and BODEx index.

Methods: Multicentre, observational, cross-sectional study. Patients were aged ≥40 years, with spirometrically confirmed COPD.

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Background: Current asthma management guidelines are based on the level of asthma control. The impact of asthma control on health care resources and quality of life (QoL) is insufficiently studied. EUCOAST study was designed to describe costs and QoL in adult patients according to level of asthma control in France and Spain.

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