Clinical practice guidelines in oncology—achievements and challenges

Excerpt

The health care community relies heavily on the continuous translation of scientific evidence into clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) [1]. Over the last 20 years, different CPGs have been developed by various government and private organizations at local, regional, national and international levels. The U.S. Institute of Medicine (IOM) defines CPGs as “statements that include recommendations intended to optimize patient care that are informed by a systematic review of evidence and an assessment of benefits and harms of alternative care options” [2]. The purposes of CPGs are to improve the quality of patient care and health care outcomes, make clinical decisions more transparent, promote efficient use of resources and prioritise research goals. Moreover, CPGs may provide guidance for involved stakeholders such as health professionals, patients, carers, industry health care providers and policy makers and support quality control. Producers of CPGs rely primarily on the evidence-based medicine (EBM) system. EBM was first established in 1992 as a more scientific and systematic approach to the practice of medicine and considered as the process of systematically finding, appraising and using contemporaneous research findings as the basis for clinical decision making [3,4]. …