Clinical practice guidelines need to be based on evidence, but traditional Chinese medicine, especially integration of traditional Chinese and Western medicine guidelines, inevitably need to combine clinical research evidence, ancient literature, and expert experience and consensus. In the process of formulating, there are deviations in understanding and application of the expert consensus method and expert experience, resulting in opaque of the recommendations, unclear of the details of the diagnosis and treatment strategy, less prominent of the advantages and value of traditional Chinese medicine, which affects the scientificity, transparency, applicability, promotion and application of the guidelines of traditional Chinese medicine or integration of traditional Chinese and Western medicine. This study discusses the guiding principle of "evidence as a core, consensus as a supplement, and experience as a reference" that was generally followed and puts forward detailed methodological suggestions to the formulation of guidelines for traditional Chinese medicine and integration of traditional Chinese and Western medicine.
