Endocrine Abstracts

Background: The development of a new syringe for lanreotide Autogel, in conjunction with patients, caregivers and HCPs, identified and integrated several upgrades to the previous design that could improve patient care.

Aims: To better understand which attributes are pertinent to users, and how user preferences can be optimally assessed, we conducted a systematic literature review of relevant studies of pre-filled devices.

Methods: PubMed was searched in November 2018 for terms (human attributes) AND (injectable OR syringe), and widened with a hand-search through references of review articles to detect more reported attributes that are of importance to users. Eligible publications reported users’ preferences and/or degree of importance of certain attributes of pre-filled devices. Articles should only include one of the following chronic diseases: acromegaly, neuroendocrine tumour (NET), multiple sclerosis (MS), and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Studies in paediatric population were excluded. Attributes that were considered important to users when selecting an injectable device, were extracted from the publications.

Results: Of 185 publications found in PubMed seven were selected along with seven others from the hand-search: one each in HCPs (77 nurses), patients with acromegaly (n=25), patients with acromegaly and their partners (41 patients, 18 partners); five in patients with MS (n=35–422); four in caregivers, HCPs and patients with RA (23–640 patients, 10–33 caregivers, 10–90 HCPs); and two review articles discussing lanreotide in NET and acromegaly. Main user-selected attributes included: pre-filled systems, ease and comfort of use, control over the device, needle size and invisibility (shielded prior to injection and retracted into the device post injection), plunger design and sturdiness, confidence that full dose has been delivered, and potential for self-injection.

Conclusion: Few publications discussed patient, HCP or caregiver preference using pre-filled delivery systems. Further studies evaluating the preference when using chronic treatments such as somatostatin analogues, may identify additional attributes relevant for future developments.