Cost-effectiveness of secukinumab as first biologic treatment, compared with other biologics, for moderate to severe psoriasis in Germany.

Background: Secukinumab, a fully human monoclonal antibody that selectively neutralizes interleukin 17A, has demonstrated strong and sustained efficacy in adults with moderate to severe psoriasis in clinical trials.

Objective: This analysis compared the cost per responder of secukinumab as first biologic treatment of moderate to severe psoriasis, with adalimumab, infliximab, etanercept and ustekinumab in Germany.

Methods: A 52-week decision-tree model was developed.

Cost-utility analysis of indacaterol in Germany: a once-daily maintenance bronchodilator for patients with COPD.

Introduction: Indacaterol is a novel inhaled once-daily long-acting beta(2)-agonist (LABA) for the maintenance treatment of COPD that has been compared to existing inhaled monotherapies on a number of symptomatic endpoints in clinical studies. With constrained healthcare budgets, the objective of this analysis was to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of indacaterol 150 μg, the approved starting dose for maintenance therapy, from a German heath service perspective against the most widely used bronchodilator tiotropium, and the twice-daily LABA, salmeterol.

Methods: A Markov model was developed with the following main health states: Mild, Moderate, Severe, and Very Severe COPD, based on pre-bronchodilator FEV(1) measures reported in the indacaterol clinical trials, and death.

Clinical and biochemical characterization of patients with early infantile onset of autosomal recessive GTP cyclohydrolase I deficiency without hyperphenylalaninemia.

Autosomal recessive guanosine triphosphate cyclohydrolase (GTPCH) type I deficiency is characterized by complex neurological dysfunction. Patients are usually diagnosed with hyperphenylalaninemia in newborn screening. We describe two unrelated patients without hyperphenylalaninemia who presented during early infancy with severe motor retardation, hypokinesia, and truncal hypotonia.

Increasing density and Borrelia burgdorferi infection of deer-infesting Ixodes dammini (Acari: Ixodidae) in Maryland.

A statewide survey of Ixodes dammini Spielman was done in November 1991 as a follow-up to a study in 1989. In total, 3,434 adult ticks were collected from 922 hunter-killed white-tailed deer processed at 22 check stations (1 per county in 22 of 23 counties in the state). Significantly more male than female ticks were collected.