UNASSIGNED: The Chinese Society of Breast Surgery (CSBrS) Practice Guideline 2021 was published nearly one year ago. The new guideline was revised based on comprehensive feedback of the previous publication. The aim is to provide a better reference suitable for Chinese breast surgeons.
UNASSIGNED: Referred to GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation) system, evidences accepted by the Guideline were classified into four categories: I, II, III and IV, which reflected the reliability of the evidences quantitatively. The guideline also comprehensively considered the accessibility of the guideline in clinical practice in China and gave recommendations with different strengths.
UNASSIGNED: The guideline emphasized the basic idea that a curative surgical approach falls under the category of radical tumor surgery. Six chapters, including \"Diagnosis and treatment of patients with invasive breast cancer\", \"Sentinel lymph node biopsy in patients with early-stage breast cancer\", \"Breast-conserving surgery in patients with early-stage breast cancer\", \"Modified radical mastectomy of breast cancer\", \"Central venous access for the systemic treatment of breast cancer\", and \"Breast cancer in pregnancy and postpartum breast cancer\" were revised.
UNASSIGNED: Compared with the 2021 edition, the new guideline has been revised in six chapters based on the latest research evidence and clinical needs.

OBJECTIVE: To update an evidence base informing the 2024 JCR clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) for the management of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in older adults.
METHODS: Four clinical questions (CQs) regarding efficacy and safety of drug treatment were evaluated, with CQ1 addressing methotrexate (MTX), CQ2 biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (bDMARDs), CQ3 Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitors, and CQ4 glucocorticoids (GCs). Quality of the evidence was assessed using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation system.
RESULTS: Observational studies confirmed a pivotal role of MTX in the treatment of older RA patients. The meta-analysis showed that tumor necrosis factor inhibitors and JAK inhibitors were unequivocally effective in older RA patients. No data indicated that bDMARDs were unsafe for older patients. No safety data for JAK inhibitor use in older patients were available. One randomized controlled trial demonstrated that long-term treatment with low-dose GCs increased risks of GC-associated adverse events. The certainty of overall evidence was very low for all CQs.
CONCLUSIONS: This systematic review provides the necessary evidence for developing 2024 JCR CPGs for managing older patients with RA. Continued updates on the evidence of JAK inhibitors and GC are desired.

To summarize the current therapies for skin cancers, the Japanese Skin Cancer Society issued the first guidelines for skin cancers, including melanoma, squamous cell carcinoma, basal cell carcinoma (BCC), and extramammary Paget\'s disease, in 2007. These guidelines were revised in 2015. Herein, we present the English version of the 2021 edition of the Japanese clinical guidelines for BCC. In the latest edition, all procedures were performed according to the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation systems. The clinical questions that could not be answered were selected for further analysis. A comprehensive literature search, systematic review, and recommendations for each clinical question were determined by a multidisciplinary expert panel comprising dermatologists, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon, and a pathologist. Surgical resection is the gold-standard therapy of BCC. Radiotherapy or topical treatments, other than surgical resection, have been used in some cases. Patients with unresectable or metastatic BCC require systemic therapy. Novel agents, such as immune response modifiers or hedgehog pathway inhibitors, are emerging worldwide for the treatment of BCC. Based on these viewpoints, four relevant clinical questions regarding, surgical resection, radiotherapy, topical treatment, and systemic therapy, were raised in this report that aims to help clinicians select suitable therapies for their patients.

OBJECTIVE: Clinical Practice Guidelines for Pancreatic Cancer was first published in 2006 by the Japan Pancreas Society, and revised in 2009, 2013, 2016, and 2019. In July 2022, Clinical Practice Guidelines for Pancreatic Cancer was newly revised in Japanese.
METHODS: For this revision, we developed an entirely new guideline according to the Minds Manual for Guideline Development 2020, which includes the concepts of GRADE-Grading Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation, to enable a better understanding of the current guidelines. Patients and the public were actively involved in both the development and implementation of the guideline.
RESULTS: The guideline includes algorithms for diagnosis, treatment, chemotherapy, and precision medicine of pancreatic cancer, and addresses 7 subjects: diagnosis, surgical therapy, adjuvant therapy, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, stent therapy, and supportive & palliative medical care. It includes 73 clinical questions and 112 statements. The statements correspond to the clinical questions, evidence levels, recommendation strengths, and agreement rates.
CONCLUSIONS: This guideline represents the most standard clinical and practical management guideline available until date in Japan. This is the English synopsis of the Clinical Practice Guidelines for Pancreatic Cancer 2022 in Japanese, and is an attempt to disseminate the Japanese guideline worldwide to introduce the Japanese approach to the clinical management of pancreatic cancer.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to provide evidence for the revision of clinical practice guidelines for the management of antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)-associated vasculitis by the Japan Research Committee for Intractable Vasculitis.
METHODS: PubMed, CENTRAL, and the Japan Medical Abstracts Society databases were searched for articles published between 2015 and 2020 to update the systematic review for existing clinical questions, while PubMed, CENTRAL, EMBASE, and the Japan Medical Abstracts Society were searched for articles published between 2000 and 2020 to conduct a systematic review for newly developed clinical questions. The certainty of evidence was assessed with the GRADE approach.
RESULTS: For remission induction, when used in conjunction with cyclophosphamide or rituximab, reduced-dose glucocorticoid lowered the risk of serious adverse events compared to standard-dose glucocorticoid. Avacopan improved sustained remission at 12 months compared to high-dose glucocorticoid. Addition of plasma exchange to remission induction therapy did not reduce the risk of death, end-stage kidney disease, or relapse. For remission maintenance, rituximab reduced the risk of relapse compared to azathioprine. Long-term rituximab or azathioprine reduced the risk of relapse compared to short-term rituximab or azathioprine, respectively.
CONCLUSIONS: This systematic review provided evidence required to develop the 2023 clinical practice guideline for the management of ANCA-associated vasculitis.

UNASSIGNED: The quality of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) should be extensively evaluated. This study aimed to evaluate Japanese CPGs that include recommendations for acupuncture.
UNASSIGNED: In a literature search, CPGs including recommendations for acupuncture published in Japan until October 2021 were sought. We assessed (1) whether the CPGs were developed in accordance with the Grading Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) system, (2) the quality of the CPGs using the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation (AGREE) II, and (3) whether the strength of the recommendations for acupuncture was consistent with each CPG\'s predefined procedure.
UNASSIGNED: Seventeen CPGs including 23 recommendations in total were identified and assessed. (1) Three CPGs were in accordance with the GRADE system. (2) The mean score of overall assessment using AGREE II was 4.5 on a 7-point Likert scale. The mean domain scores were 77% for domain 1 (scope and purpose), 54% for domain 2 (stakeholder involvement), 48% for domain 3 (rigor of development), 78% for domain 4 (clarity of presentation), 20% for domain 5 (applicability), and 51% for domain 6 (editorial independence). (3) The strength of the recommendations for acupuncture in two CPGs was judged to be underestimated. Some of the CPGs contained elementary problems that were not considered in AGREE II.
UNASSIGNED: The methodological quality of Japanese CPGs including recommendations for acupuncture was not necessarily high. Since technical issues exist in each field of therapy, the respective experts should be involved in developing and reviewing CPGs to disseminate accurate health information.

Research on the efficacy of hypnosis applications continues to grow, but there remain major gaps between the science and clinical practice. One challenge has been a lack of consensus on which applications of hypnosis are efficacious based on research evidence. In 2018, 6 major hypnosis organizations collaborated to form the Task Force for Establishing Efficacy Standards for Clinical Hypnosis. This paper describes a Guideline for the Assessment of Efficacy of Clinical Hypnosis Applications developed by the Task Force, which makes 10 specific recommendations. The guideline is intended to be a tool for those who want to assess the quality of existing evidence on the efficacy of clinical hypnosis for any particular indication. The paper also discusses methodological issues in the interpretation and implementation of these guidelines. Future papers will report on the other products of the Hypnosis Efficacy Task Force, such as best practice recommendations for outcomes research in hypnosis and an international survey of researchers and clinicians on current practice and attitudes about hypnosis.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to update the Japan College of Rheumatology (JCR) clinical practice guidelines (CPG) for the management of rheumatoid arthritis (RA; JCR CPG for RA) according to recent changes in the medical environment in Japan. This article is a digest version of the guidance.
METHODS: We used the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation method to update the 2014 JCR CPG for RA. A consensus was formed by CPG panel members.
RESULTS: We identified 36 important clinical questions regarding drug treatment and developed corresponding recommendations for RA. The recommendations included the following RA medications: non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, corticosteroids, conventional synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, anti-receptor activator for nuclear factor-κB ligand antibodies, and Janus kinase inhibitors, as well as the tapering and discontinuation of these medications. Recommendations regarding the efficacy and safety of treatments in the elderly and patients with comorbidities were also developed. Finally, we used these recommendations to create an original algorithm for drug treatment for RA based on the Treat-to-Target approach.
CONCLUSIONS: The 2020 JCR CPG for RA provides a useful tool for rheumatologists, health care professionals, and patients with RA, enabling shared decision-making in a variety of clinical situations.

In the last decade, the development of clinical practice guidelines in China has grown rapidly. However, with regards to the guidelines that have been established in the past, few were of high quality and in line with international standards. The main reason for this was that many clinical experts were not familiar with the procedures and rules of clinical guidelines before established, which lowered the quality seriously. Clinical practice guidelines are based on a clinical problem that is distilled into populations, interventions, comparison and outcome (PICO). After comprehensive systematic review, recommendations are made through evidence grading and strength of recommendation system. In addition, other issues should be noted such as pros and cons of the recommendation for specific population, preferences and values of the population, cost-effectiveness, and the health care system. A high-quality guideline requires multidimensional thinking (from clinicians, patients and policy makers), the implementation of a standard procedure (to ensure guidelines scientifically sound, honest and transparent), as well as the collaboration of multiple organizations (including experts, methodologists and policy makers).
近10年，我国临床实践指南的制定迅速增长。然而，纵观既往制定的临床实践指南，能与国际接轨的高质量指南为数不多，主要原因是许多临床专家在制定指南之前并不熟悉其相关流程和规则，严重影响了指南的质量。临床实践指南需从临床问题出发，通过凝练化解为目标人群、方案或干预措施、其他备选措施以及可能的结局指标（即PICO问题），利用全面的系统评价、证据分级及推荐强度系统，对评价的措施给予确切的推荐意见。制定过程当中，需要同时考量推荐意见对适用人群的利弊，包括权衡适用人群的偏好和价值观、成本效益、医疗保健系统等。由此，一部高质量临床实践指南的制定需要多维度思考（从临床医生、患者、政策制定者思考）、实施标准流程（确保指南的科学性、真实性与透明性）以及依赖于多方协作（包括本专业领域专家、方法学家和政策制定者）。.

OBJECTIVE: To provide an evidence base for clinical practice guidelines (CPG) for the management of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in older adults.
METHODS: PubMed, Cochrane library, and Japan Centra Revuo Medicina databases were searched for articles published between 1990 and 2019. Quality of the evidence was assessed using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation system, with some modifications.
RESULTS: Among 702 identified articles, there were 5 post-hoc analyses of randomized controlled trials and 10 observational studies. Meta-analysis of the former yielded a mean difference of the van der Heijde-modified total Sharp score of -2.79 (95% confidence interval [CI] - 3.74 to -1.84) for treatment with tumor necrosis factor inhibitors. The risk ratio (RR) for the American College of Rheumatology 50% response rate, and for serious adverse events was 2.83 (95%CI 1.90-4.21) and 1.32 (95%CI 0.53-3.31), respectively, for Janus kinase inhibitors. Meta-analysis of the observational studies yielded an RR for disease activity score-28 remission and serious infections of 0.76 (95%CI 0.64-0.91) and 1.92 (95%CI 1.31-2.81) for older-versus-younger patients receiving biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, respectively.
CONCLUSIONS: This systematic review provides the necessary evidence for developing CPG for the management of RA in older adults.