The Collegiate Board of the National Supplementary Health Agency (ANS) approved this week the inclusion of two medicines for the treatment of lupus in the list of procedures in health events, making it mandatory to cover these treatments for health plans beneficiaries..
The measure is valid only for lupus patients who are beneficiaries of health plans and will be valid from November 3rd. It is estimated that about 2,000 people benefit from this measure.
The medicines that will be covered by health plans are the Anifrolumab and beimmube, which are suitable for the treatment of systemic lupus erythematosus in adult patients with frequent episodes of the disease and with a high incidence of symptoms, despite the use of standard therapy.
This is the first time drugs for lupus exclusive treatment have been included in the mandatory coverage list. However, in 2024, ANS had already incorporated BELIMUMABE into compulsory coverage, but to treat patients with lupus nephritis, a renal complication due to lupus.
“These inclusions are very significant, as lupus is a complex disease that has no cure. If we have in the country medicines that enable the disease to control and ensure a good quality of life for the patient, this needs to be available to the consumer,” Wadih Damous, CEO of ANS, said in a statement.
The measure was celebrated by the Brazilian Society of Rheumatology (SBR), which participated in public consultations and meetings that involved the submission of these medicines to be integrated into the ANS list.
In conversation with Brazil agency During the Brazilian Congress of Rheumatology, which takes place in Salvador until this Saturday (20), the rheumatologist Odirlei Andre Monticielo, coordinator of the SBR Scientific Committee (Lupus erythematosus) and professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, celebrated the inclusions.
“These were legitimate demands. These are medications that have a package leaflet for use for systemic lupus erythematosus. They have scientific evidence that demonstrated the benefit in the control of disease activity, allowing you to reduce glucocorticoid over time. This brings several benefits to patients who have this chronic and inflammatory disease, which involves multiple organs and systems. Help in your journey of treatment of the disease in general, ”explained the doctor.
The goal now, he stressed, is that these medicines can also reach the Unified Health System (SUS). “This is an opportunity to soon open a dialogue with the Ministry of Health and the National Council for Incorporation in the Unified Health System (Conitec),” said the rheumatologist.
“We have been able to ensure the opportunity to access patients who have an agreement, but we do not have the same access to patients who have only the Unified Health System and this creates a certain inequality in this access,” he said.
For the president of the Brazilian Society of Rheumatology, José Eduardo Martinez, the measure announced by ANS was a great achievement. “This is a disease that, for a long time, had a lack of new medicines, we always worked with medium and very old medicines.”
The lupus
Lupus is an autoimmune, chronic, unhealthy disease that causes inflammation paintings that can damage tissues and organs. The problem mainly affects young women between 20 and 45 years old. The incidence of the disease is also larger in blacks than in whites and in regions of higher incidence of sun.
The most common symptoms are joint pain, swelling and stiffness, reddish spots on the cheeks and nose and skin reactions that appear after sun exposure.
Lupus is a multisystem inflammatory disease, so it involves various organs and various systems. It is characterized by a loss of tolerance of our immune system, which begins to develop an entire inflammatory framework with autoantibodies production. Depending on the organ it affects, this may have a very large range of clinical manifestations, according to Monticielo.
“The lupus patient may have skin lesions, which usually get worse with sun, may have joint pain because it ignites the joints and may have muscle pain because it ignites the muscles. And it may also have kidney involvement, called lupus nephritis, which is a more severe picture and needs special attention.”
The artisan Regiane Araújo Pacheco, 40, who lives in Salvador, has lupus and knows these symptoms well. “Since I was a child I had pain, my foot was always flat and I had pain in my right knee, left knee and left hip,” he told the Brazil agencyduring the 10th National Meeting of Patients, also held in Salvador. Until then, she had no diagnosis for these pain she felt.
“Before my 15 years came a very strong crisis, I had a swollen knee and I slept and woke up with my hip hurt so much that I made myself impossible to walk.” Shortly thereafter, she was finally suitable for a rheumatologist and then obtained a diagnosis of child rheumatoid arthritis.
Despite this diagnosis, she continued to suffer from many pain, which led her to abandon her studies and develop a depression. It was only in 2009, years after living with many pains, that she finally had a lupus diagnosis. And in 2016, he began using Belimumab as part of a research protocol.
“Belimumade does not have for SUS and, at the time, the doctor who attended me at the Hospital das Clínicas indicated this treatment starting with clinical research. For me, it was very important. It was a watershed for my improvement and my quality of life, which was a lot of pain,” he said.
The Brazilian Society of Rheumatology (SBR) estimates that between 150 thousand and 300,000 people have systemic lupus erythematosus in Brazil.
* The reporter traveled at the invitation of the Brazilian Society of Rheumatology
