Due to the special structure and material of the flexible gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopes, it is difficult to reprocess endoscopes. Infections caused by endoscope reprocessing failure often occur. Strict implementation of the guidelines/relevant national standards and manufacturer's instructions is essential to prevent the occurrence of endoscopy-related infections and ensure patient safety. In 2020, ASGE (American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy) released the "multisociety guideline on reprocessing flexible GI endoscopes and accessories". This paper aimed to promote the understanding of the reprocessing process of flexible GI endoscopes by the endoscope decontamination staff, and to provide references for clinical practice.
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.
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.
Osteoarthritis research society international (OARSI) guidelines for the non-surgical management of knee, hip, and polyarticular osteoarthritis in 2019 contained some recommendations in treating patients with osteoarthritis (OA) who are considering non-surgical treatment. Compared with domestic consensus on diagnosis and treatment for OA, this clinical practice guideline (CPG) prepared by OARSI had some advantages in terms of methodology selection and recommendation. Therefore, it is necessary to interpret this CPG to accelerate the understanding and dissemination of the CPG. The ultimate aims were: to strengthen the normative and understanding of non-surgical treatment of OA; to enhance the understanding of clinicians for this CPG in treating OA; to accelerate the development of guideline development methodologies in China; to provide methodological guidance for the development of CPG based on the current situation in China.
The development of evidence-based social care guidelines need to follow certain standards and procedures, the process must be objective, fair, and transparent to ensure that guidelines are developed, scientific, timely, and available. Currently, many organizations have issued standard methods for developing guidelines, but the methods are mainly focused on clinical practice, and few methodological studies on the development of social care guidelines. To promote the development of evidence-based social care guidelines in China and strengthen the transformation from research to practice, this article is based on the "Social Care Guidance Manual" published on the NICE website, combined with the actual situation of domestic social care, inviting domestic evidence-based social science research experts to discuss and specifically introduce the development methods of evidence-based social care guidelines, and this article takes the "Guidelines for Providing Social Work Services to Adults with Complex Needs" as an example, interpreting the process for developing guidelines to make the guide development method more transparent.
Anemia and coagulopathy are frequently presented in critically ill patients on the intensive care unit. Scientific use of blood products assist the treatment of critically ill patients. However, life-threatening adverse effects are also a risk. In 2020, the European Society of Critical Care Medicine (ESICM) published a clinical practice guideline on transfusion strategies for non-bleeding critically ill adults in an attempt to resolve the transfusion strategy problems of relevant critically ill patients. This paper interprets the key contents in order to assist Chinese clinicians for better understanding and using of the guideline.
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.