American cancer grant society

A multidisciplinary panel was convened by the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) to develop clinical practice guidelines for lung cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. The ACCP Expert Panel on Lung Cancer Guidelines produced 20 guidelines, each related to a distinct set of management decisions. This article describes the approach used to develop the guidelines, including identifying, evaluating, and synthesizing evidence, assessing the strength of evidence pertinent to individual guidelines, and grading guideline recommendations.

Key words: advisory committees; evidence-based medicine; lung neoplasms; practice guidelines

Abbreviations: ACCP = American College of Chest Physicians; NSCLC = non-small cell lung cancer; USPSTF = US Preventive Services Task Force

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The American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) Health and Science Policy Committee, through a poll of the ACCP membership and a structured internal review of all nominated topics, selected lung cancer as a high-priority topic for developing evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. The ACCP, with support from the Duke University Center for Clinical Health Policy Research, commissioned an expert panel, the goal of which was to produce clinically relevant, evidence-based guidelines for lung cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment that were aimed at primary care physicians and pulmonary specialists. Because the target audience is primary care physicians and pulmonologists, the guidelines are somewhat more detailed about issues of prevention, screening, and diagnostic evaluation compared to treatment issues. The guidelines avoid detailed recommendations about how to administer treatments, which usually are provided by other specialists, and instead focus on recommendations for treatment approaches that are sufficient to make referral decisions.

The guideline topics are as follows: (1) prevention; (2) screening and early detection; (3) diagnosis; (4) initial evaluation; (5) physiologic and functional assessment; (6) solitary pulmonary nodules; (7) noninvasive staging; (8) invasive staging; (9) treatment of early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC); (10) treatment of stage I NSCLC; (11) treatment of stage II NSCLC; (12) treatment of stage IIIA NSCLC; (13) treatment of stage IIIB NSCLC; (14) lung cancers with special considerations; (15) chemotherapeutic management of stage IV NSCLC; (16) small cell lung cancer evaluation and treatment; (17) follow-up/surveillance; (18) palliative treatment; (19) end-of-life care; and (20) practice organization. Not included among the topics is the management of other malignancies that also may occur in the lung, including mesothelioma, hamartoma, thymoma, and carcinoid and neuroendocrine tumors. Also omitted from these topics are complementary and alternative medicine treatments.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Evidence Review

As a first step in identifying the evidence for each topic, we sought existing evidence syntheses including guidelines, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses. We searched computerized bibliographic databases including MEDLINE, Cancerlit, CINAHL and HealthStar, the Cochrane Collaboration Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness, the National Guideline Clearinghouse, and the National Cancer Institute Physician Data Query database. Computerized searches through July 2001 used the MeSH terms lung neoplasms (exploded) and bronchial neoplasms or text searches for lung cancer combined with review articles, practice guidelines, guidelines, and meta-analyses. We also searched and included studies from the reference lists of review articles, and queried experts in the field. An international search was conducted of Web sites of provider organizations that were likely to have developed guidelines. Abstracts of candidate English language articles were reviewed by two physicians (one with methodological expertise and one with content area expertise) and a subset was selected for review in full text. Full-text articles were reviewed again by two physicians to determine whether they were original publications of a synthesis and were pertinent to at least one of the topics of the guideline. Articles described as practice guidelines, systematic reviews, or meta-analyses were included, as were review articles that included a "Methods" section. Included articles were classified according to topic.

The methodological quality of existing clinical practice guidelines were evaluated using a rigorously developed and validated instrument (see the article on the critical appraisal of lung cancer guidelines in this supplement). (1)

An initial review of published syntheses permitted the executive committee to select topics for new evidence reviews. Five topics for which existing syntheses were inadequate were selected for new evidence reviews conducted by the Duke Center for Clinical Health Policy Research. These topics included prevention, screening, diagnosis, and staging (invasive and noninvasive). The methods for these reviews are described in separate articles in this supplement. For other topics, identified guidelines, meta-analyses, and systematic reviews were made available to the writing committees described below.

Guideline Development

The guideline development panel was composed of members and nonmembers of the ACCP who were known to have expertise in various areas of lung cancer management and care, representing multiple specialties, and 13 national and international medical associations (Table 1), including the Alliance for Lung Cancer Advocacy, Support, and Education (a patient support group) and the Oncology Nurses Society. The specialties included pulmonary/respiratory medicine, critical care, medical oncology, thoracic surgery, radiation oncology, epidemiology, law, and medical ethics. The panel was led by an executive committee including the chair (MA) and vice chair (GC), the leader of the methodology support group (DM), the ACCP project manager (SL), and the vice-president for Health and Science Policy (SP). The executive committee directed the guideline development process, methodological issues, panel composition, structure of the final document, and activities of the topic-specific writing committees.

Each writing committee was led by a member of the expert panel who agreed to review evidence and develop guidelines on 1 or more of the 20 topics listed earlier. The lead editor for each writing committee nominated individuals to assist with evidence review and guideline development, with the goal of including expertise from all relevant disciplines. Nominations for writing committee membership were reviewed and approved by the executive committee.

Funding for both the evidence reviews and guideline development was provided through an unrestricted educational grant from Bristol-Myers Squibb, which had no other role in the evidence review or guideline development process or content. Information about potential conflicts of interest were collected from each member of the expert panel or writing committee at the time of their nomination in accordance with the policy of the ACCP. Information on conflicts of interest for each panelist is listed in the guideline.

PROCESS

Each writing committee was charged with identifying the important management issues for which guidelines were needed. Each writing committee received a comprehensive list of existing systematic reviews and meta-analyses as well as guidelines published by other groups. In addition, for the five key topics described earlier, new systematic reviews were undertaken and were led by either the Duke Center for Clinical Health Policy Research or the Health Outcomes Research Group, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and Department of Medicine, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. For all other topics, writing committees were responsible for identifying and interpreting studies that were not otherwise covered in existing syntheses or guidelines.

To develop guidelines, the panel used informal group consensus techniques. The guidelines developed by the writing committees on each topic were distributed to the entire expert panel, and comments were solicited in advance of a meeting. During the meeting, proposed recommendations were reviewed, discussed, and voted on by the entire panel. Approval required consensus, which was defined as an overwhelming majority approval. Differences of opinion were accommodated by revising the proposed recommendation, the rationale, or the grade until consensus could be reached. The evidence supporting each recommendation was summarized, and recommendations were graded as described below. The assessments of level of evidence, net benefit, and grade of recommendation were reviewed by the executive committee.

VALUES