In order to help Chinese guideline developers, clinicians, health policy makers and other relevant researchers fully understand and make appropriate use of World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, Chinese GRADE Center and Guidelines Review Committee of World Health Organization (WHO-GRC) have written a series of papers about development methods, review principles and the structure and content of WHO guidelines. This is the third (also last) paper which interpreted Consolidated Guidelines on the Use of Antiretroviral Drugs for Treating and Preventing HIV Infection and Guidelines for the Screening, Care and Treatment of Persons with Hepatitis C Infection as examples with the process and steps of WHO guideline development.
Brain injury after cardiopulmonary resuscitation is closely related to the survival rate and prognosis of neurological function of cardiac arrest (CA) patients. Recently, the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) published a practice guideline which had updated the evaluation of different treatments for reducing brain injury following cardiopulmonary resuscitation. In order to master and transmit AAN 2017 practice guideline on reducing brain injury following cardiopulmonary resuscitation, this paper interprets the new AAN clinical practice guideline to assist Chinese clinicians for better studying the guideline.
Based on peer-reviewed systematic reviews and randomized controlled trials published from January 1990 to April 2016 with regards to the management of osteoarthritis (OA) of the hip, the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) developed the clinical practice guideline for the treatment of hip OA. This guideline provided practice recommendations including risk factors for hip OA, oral drugs and intraarticular injectables, physical therapies, perioperative hemostatic drug, anesthetic types, approach exposures, etc. The evidence of guideline was graded according to it’s strength. This article interpreted this guideline so as to provide reference for Chinese medical staffs and guideline developers.
The 2020 ACC/AHA Guideline for the Management of Patients with Valvular Heart Disease not only updates aortic valve stenosis, mitral regurgitation, prosthetic valves, infective endocarditis and antithrombotic treatment on the basis of the 2017 guidelines update for valvular heart disease, but also involves aortic valve regurgitation, bicuspid aortic valve, mitral stenosis, tricuspid regurgitation, combined valve disease, pregnancy with valvular disease, valve disease complicated with coronary heart disease, valve disease complicated with non-cardiac surgery and the prospect of comprehensive management of valve disease. It covers a wide range of contents, which are introduced in detail and comprehensively. This paper interprets some highlights and core issues, including the top 10 take-home messages, the severity of valvular heart disease, and the updates in the management of aortic valve stenosis, aortic valve regurgitation, bicuspid aortic valve, mitral stenosis and mitral regurgitation.
Gout is the most common inflammatory arthritis, which is characterized by elevated urate and monosodium urate (MSU) crystal deposition in tissues, leading to arthritis, soft-tissue masses (tophi), nephrolithiasis, and urate nephropathy. It has a major impact on health-related quality of life. The American College of Rheumatology (ACR) published ACR guidelines for the management of gout in June 2020, in which 42 recommendations (including 16 strong recommendations) were generated. The guideline described indications for urate-lowering therapy (ULT), approaches to initiating, ongoing management, gout flares, and lifestyle and other medication strategies in patients with gout and in individuals with asymptomatic hyperuricemia. This paper interprets it to provide references for clinical practice.
Chinese guideline for diagnosis and treatment of osteoarthritis (2021 edition) was published in the Chinese Journal of Orthopaedics, providing abundant recommendations on osteoarthritis (OA) issues. In this paper, the methodological and reporting qualities of the guideline were explained and assessed by using quality appraisal tools, such as appraisal of guidelines research and evaluation-China (AGREE-China), Institute of Medicine Committee (IOM), and reporting items for practice guidelines in healthcare (RIGHT). It also aimed to provide personalized treatments for specific patients, support readers in understanding the principle of OA treatment, and standardize OA treatment strategies. In addition, this study would contribute to the clinical promotion of the current guidelines and provide the necessary references for clinical practice guidelines in treating OA in the future.
In July 2023, six scientific organizations, including the American Heart Association (AHA) and the American College of Cardiology (ACC), jointly released the 2023 AHA/ACC/ACCP/ASPC/NLA/PCNA guideline for the management of patients with chronic coronary disease. By reviewing the latest scientific data, the guideline reemphasized the importance of a healthy diet, regular physical activity and smoking cessation in cardiovascular health. Routine testing is limited to patients with changes in clinical or functional status. Regarding the clinical management of CCD, the guideline limited the use of beta-blockers (BB) and updated recommendations for the usage of three drugs, including sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT2i), glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists, and bempedoic acid.
Directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) are essential tools based on prior assumptions, capable of clearly depicting causal relationships between variables, aiding in the identification of confounders and assessment of bias. They have been widely applied in the field of epidemiology. However, the construction of DAGs is prone to the subjectivity of researchers. This paper interprets the DAGs construction and application guidelines from the BMJ and elaborates on the seven steps for building DAGs: clarifying the research question and target population, identifying relevant variables, reaching consensus and pre-registering, determining data collection or datasets based on the consensus graph, selecting analysis methods and variable measurement, conducting sensitivity analysis, and reporting the DAGs. By following these steps, researchers can construct DAGs more scientifically, identify the minimal sufficient adjustment set, and enhance the scientific validity and reliability of their studies. Despite its advantages, DAGs have limitations. For instance, failure to consider all relevant factors may lead to unexplained disturbances in the analysis results or incorrect causal inferences, thus failing to verify other key assumptions in causal reasoning. Therefore, it is recommended to integrate DAGs with data-driven methods to maximize their strengths and compensate for their shortcomings.
