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Objective: Rising cost of medical therapy is a major concern for patients, and there is high variability in the prices of numerous branded medicines available in India especially in life style diseases like hypertension. Thus, a cost analysis study was carried out to assess the brand price variations in the oral antihypertensive drugs available either singly or in combination and number of manufacturing companies for each, also to evaluate the difference in cost of different brands of same active drug by calculating percentage variation of cost. and implementation of quality norms is needed. Materials and Methods

Introduction: Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) effectively suppress acid secretion and play an important role a lot of gastrointestinal disorders. PPIs are generally used long term by the patients. This can cause an increase in patient cost and subsequent decrease in adherence to the prescription. Hence, this study was done to assess the cost variation of PPIs. Methods: The cost of different brands of commonly used PPIs (10 capsules/tablets for oral drugs and one ampoule/vial for injectable drugs) was tabulated by referring to the “Monthly Index of Medical Specialties” October – December 2021, and 1mg online pharmacy. The cost ratio and percentage cost variation for various brands of a particular strength and dosage form was calculated and compared. Cost ratio >2 and cost variation >100% was considered significant. Results: The results showed a huge variation in costs of different brands with the highest being Rabeprazole 20mg (Cost ratio-16.4, Percentage cost variation-1540%) in oral formulation and Rabeprazole 20mg (11.9, 1090%) in the injectable formulation. Among oral drugs, Omeprazole 40mg has the lowest cost ratio and percentage cost variation (1.60, 60.34%) and Pantoprazole 40mg (1.51, 51.16%) in case of injectable formulations. Conclusion: There is a wide variation in the prices of PPIs available in the market. Huge demand for the commonly orally prescribed drugs like Omeprazole 20mg and Pantoprazole 40mg could be the reason for the high cost. Among injectable preparations, Pantoprazole 40mg is the most commonly prescribed but it has an acceptable cost ratio which is a positive sign.

Background: Anti-hypertensive drugs can effectively control hypertension, subject to good adherence. Uncontrolled hypertension can lead to numerous complications, some even potentially fatal, such as myocardial infarction, atherosclerosis, thromboembolism, shock and stroke.Methods: A cross-sectional prospective study was conducted with the help of a pre-validated questionnaire during the course of 6 months in the medicine outpatient department and the inpatient department (wards) at a tertiary care hospital, Navi Mumbai in 200 hypertensive patients to calculate the correlation of the sociodemographic factors with adherence by the chi-squared test.Results: The overall percentage of adherence to antihypertensive medication was 34.8%. It was the highest (72.1%) in the younger age group, i.e., below 50 years. It was observed that as the age increases, the adherence to treatment decreases. Adherence rates were significantly higher among females and those individuals who had never attended school. Among the employed, 70.3% were adherent to their treatment and among the unemployed, 64.4% were adherent. The percentage of adherence was lower in alcohol consumers (9.5%) as compared to nonusers (76% and 32%, respectively).Conclusions: The clinician advising anti-hypertensive therapy should provide thorough counselling and stress on the issues created due to poor medication adherence as hypertension can be associated with severe outcomes. Treatments should be given in accordance with each patient’s lifestyles in mind such that they may continue taking their medications till the completion of their therapy.

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