DefinePK

Abstract

With rapid advancements in breast oncology, there is a growing need for high-quality, systematically developed clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) and consensus statements (CSs). This study aims to assess the quality of the current clinical practice guidelines and consensus statements related to the management of breast cancer employing the Appraisal of Guidelines Research and Evaluation (AGREE) II tool.
METHODS A systematic literature search of bibliographic databases (PubMed and Google Scholar) and 20 professional society websites was conducted from January 2019 onwards. Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation (AGREE) II instrument was used to evaluate the methodological quality of the included CPGs and CSs.
 RESULTS The analysis of the AGREE II overall assessment of CPGs and CSs revealed a wide overall score range. The median overall score across the guidelines was 61%. The highest overall score was obtained by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) guidelines, with scores ranging from 80-91%, followed by 5th ESO-ESMO ABC5 (77%), 4th ESO-ESMO BCY4 (76%) and V.4 NCCN (74%). Overall, CSs had a lower quality in the majority of the domains as compared to CPGs.
 CONCLUSIONS The authors believe that the guidelines related to breast cancer management have a wide room for improvement. There is a growing need for CPGs/CSs that employ uniformly endorsed standards. Guideline development standards are the current state-of-the-art, and guideline developers must direct their efforts towards acknowledging and incorporating them into guidelines.