Chapter 13 – South America’s AD Clinical Trials Experience: Lessons Learned from Argentina and Brazil

Dementia is seriously disabling for those who have it and is often devastating for their caregivers and families. There are 7.7 million new cases of dementia each year, implying that there is a new case of dementia somewhere in the world every four seconds. The growth of dementia in the next 20 years will be much more acute in those countries with low and medium salaries. The World Health Organization wrote a report about dementia, calling on all governments to define dementia as a public health priority. Dementia clinical studies are becoming more and more complex with the number of enrolled patients increasing. Historically, the majority of patients recruited into clinical trials for medicine development have been from Western Europe and the US. However, clinical trials are increasingly recruiting patients from more countries, including developing countries. South America has larger urban populations than other emerging regions and could provide treatment-naive patients for clinical trials.