Pharmacoeconomic study of tacrolimus-based versus cyclosporine-based immunosuppressive therapy following liver transplantation Close window Two therapies to prevent acute cellular rejection after liver transplantation were studied. The first was a tacrolimus-based immunosuppressive regimen with an initial dose of 0.1 mg/kg per day, taken orally in two doses. The second was a cyclosporine-based immunosuppressive regimen with an initial dose of 10 mg/kg per day, also taken orally in two doses.The analysis of effectiveness used a prospective trial. No randomisation was performed and the method used to allocate the patients to the study groups was not reported. In addition, power calculations were not performed, and there was no evidence that the initial sample was appropriate for the clinical study question. The period during which the effectiveness data were collected was not reported. All of the patients were included in the analysis. The main limitations to the internal validity of the analysis were the small sample size and the lack of appropriate statistical analyses to take account of potential biases and confounding factors. Also, the study groups were not shown to be comparable and the study population was not defined in detail.
