Adherence, Persistence, and Expenditures for High-Cost Anti-Inflammatory Drugs in Rheumatoid Arthritis: An Exploratory Study.

Background: Drugs for inflammatory conditions are one of the highest expenditure therapeutic classes for health plans. Published literature for adherence, persistence, nonadherence risk factors, and health care costs are incomplete for newer biologic agents.

Objectives: To (a) examine differences in adherence, persistence, switch patterns, and health care costs among high-cost specialty anti-inflammatory medications and (b) suggest risk factors for nonadherence in rheumatoid arthritis.

Sugar-cellulose composites VII. A comparative assessment of corn syrup as a fiber substitute in paper.

The ability of the mixture of alpha-linked glucose oligomers in corn syrup to function as intrafiber components of paper is statistically assessed at the 95% confidence level for two degrees of refining (257 and 402 mL CSF) of never-dried commercial softwood and hardwood/softwood pulps. Independent of the extent of refining, the replacement of the beaten fibers by corn syrup at about the 6% level does not result in a statistically significant deterioration (two-sided t-test, p=0.05) of the ISO brightness or of the tensile, tear, burst or surface strength values of the resultant papers.