The transfer of Advair^MC and Symbicort^MC to the Exception Drug section: impact on emergency health services (only available in French)

Since Advair^TM and Symbicort^TM were transferred to the Exception Drug section in October 2003, some have raised the concern that people suffering from asthma would not receive effective treatment due to all the red tape associated with authorization requests for these drug products. This could have lead to negative health consequences for those patients. In response to this concern, the Conseil du médicament carried out a study to assess the consequences of transferring these drug products with regard to emergency consultations and asthma-related hospitalizations.

A retrospective cohort study was carried out using databases managed by the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec (RAMQ). All health insurance beneficiaries between the ages of 6 and 44 who were newly diagnosed with asthma between October 1, 2001 and September 30, 2003 (the pre-transfer period) or between October 1, 2003 and September 30, 2005 (the post-transfer period) were included. For each of these periods, the subjects were divided into two groups, based on their prescription drug insurance (publicly insured, persons affected by the transfer; and privately insured, persons not affected by the transfer). A Cox regression was used to assess the relative risk of a first asthma-related hospitalization or emergency consultation during those periods.

Following the section transfer, the risk of a first asthma-related hospitalization or emergency consultation remained unchanged for the 47,579 publicly insured persons and the 93,177 privately insured persons. In addition, the change in the risk factor for both groups between the pre-transfer and post-transfer periods was not statistically significant.

The results show that the transfer of the drug products to the Exception Drug section had no serious health repercussions for people suffering from asthma.