São Paulo medical journal = Revista paulista de medicina
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Multicenter Study
Economic evaluation of human albumin use in patients with nephrotic syndrome in four Brazilian public hospitals: pharmacoeconomic study.
In 2004, the Brazilian National Health Surveillance Agency (Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitária, ANVISA) published a resolution establishing guidelines for albumin use. Although the published data do not indicate any definitive conclusions about the benefits of albumin use in patients with nephrotic syndrome (NS), the guidelines recommend this procedure only in cases of edema that is refractory to use of diuretics. The aim here was to analyze albumin use among patients with nephrotic syndrome. ⋯ The economic analyses of this study demonstrated that there were greater cost benefits for patients whose treatment followed the guidelines.