While we found relatively good st and ards of reporting the study ’s question , population , interventions , comparators and conclusions , the overall reporting was poor , and evidence of unfamiliarity with international guidelines was evident ( i.e. absence of incremental analysis , of discounting long-term costs and effects ) .
Analysis or description of place-to-place variability was infrequent .
Use and acceptance of health economic evaluations ( HEEs ) has been much greater in developed than in developing nations .
Nevertheless , while developing countries lag behind in the development of HEE methods , they could benefit from the progress made in other countries and concentrate on ways in which existing methods can be used or would need to be modified to fulfill their specific needs .
HEEs , as context -specific tools , are not easily generalizable from setting to setting .
Existing studies regarding generalizability and transferability of HEEs have primarily been conducted in developed countries .
Therefore , a legitimate question for policy makers in Latin America and the Caribbean region ( LAC ) is to what extent HEEs conducted in industrialized economies and in LAC are generalizable to LAC ( trans-regional ) and to other LAC countries ( intra-regional ) , respectively .
Pharmacoeconomic evaluation of Simulect prophylaxis in renal transplant recipients.
Advances in immunosuppressive therapy have substantially improved one-year clinical outcomes for renal transplantation.1 However , acute rejection still occurs in up to 50 % of kidney transplantation recipients during the first year,2 and it remains the major contributor to chronic rejection and long-term graft failure . [ 3 ] , [ 4 ] and [ 5 ] Although episodes of acute rejection are reversible with heightened doses of steroids and antibody therapy , the implication s for increased healthcare costs and poor long-term outcome underscore the importance of developing therapies to reduce acute rejection . Basiliximab ( Simulect , Novartis , Basel , Switzerl and ) is a high-affinity chimeric antiinterleukin-2 receptor monoclonal antibody that is indicated for the prophylaxis of acute rejection after renal transplantation . [ 6 ] and [ 7 ] R and omised clinical trials have demonstrated that basiliximab is highly effective in suppressing acute rejection when used in combination with dual therapy of cyclosporin and steroids . [ 8 ] and [ 9 ] Recently , a phase III international multi-centre trial was performed to evaluate the effectiveness of  basiliximab  in renal transplantation patients receiving a st and ard triple therapy regimen of cyclosporin , steroids , and azathioprine.10  An economic evaluation of the trial was undertaken alongside the clinical studies . We determined the economic impact of adding basiliximab to triple therapy . Our objectives were to compare within-trial re source use between basiliximab-treated and placebo-treated patients within six months of renal transplantation and to evaluate the cost implication s of basiliximab use , relative to clinical outcomes
While we found relatively good st and ards of reporting the study ’s question , population , interventions , comparators and conclusions , the overall reporting was poor , and evidence of unfamiliarity with international guidelines was evident ( i.e. absence of incremental analysis , of discounting long-term costs and effects ) .
Analysis or description of place-to-place variability was infrequent .
Use and acceptance of health economic evaluations ( HEEs ) has been much greater in developed than in developing nations .
Nevertheless , while developing countries lag behind in the development of HEE methods , they could benefit from the progress made in other countries and concentrate on ways in which existing methods can be used or would need to be modified to fulfill their specific needs .
HEEs , as context -specific tools , are not easily generalizable from setting to setting .
Existing studies regarding generalizability and transferability of HEEs have primarily been conducted in developed countries .
Therefore , a legitimate question for policy makers in Latin America and the Caribbean region ( LAC ) is to what extent HEEs conducted in industrialized economies and in LAC are generalizable to LAC ( trans-regional ) and to other LAC countries ( intra-regional ) , respectively .