ESC Guidelines for the management of chronic coronary syndromes, engl.

Transparency

There is a document that explains conflict of interest declarations and their "management": https://www.escardio.org/static-file/Escardio/Guidelines/DOI/2024/DOI-summary-2024-ESC-Guidelines-CCS.pdf. Therein is stated that all authors and task force members fill out an COI declaration every year. There is also an ESP paper (ESC Declaration and Management of Conflict of Interest Policy – Annex 3 - updated 23 February 2023, https://www.escardio.org/static-file/Escardio/Web/Documents/ESC-Declaration-and-Management-of-COI-Policy.pdf) in which the process is presented:
"No Interest: Zero financial income from industry-related activities.
Modest Interest: The total financial income per annum from industry-related activities is less than Euro 10,000.
Substantial Interest: The total financial income per annum from industry-related activities exceeds Euro 10,000."
The COI information is primarily processed in the ESC "Office of Compliance", there is also the "Senior Compliance Council" for "complex and unclear situations". It is not clear from the document whether and how the aforementioned ESC bodies deal with the conflicts of interest. Point 5.d also states that authors should abstain from voting or leave the room in the event of any COI in committees. In the document of the collected COI declarations (https://www.escardio.org/static-file/Escardio/Guidelines/DOI/2024/DOI-summary-2024-ESC-Guidelines-CCS.pdf), the names of the companies are listed without any information on the money received and without categorization into the above 3 categories.

Composition of the Guideline Working Group

In the task force primarily responsible for drawing up the guideline, 17 members had relevant conflicts of interest, 6 did not. Among the reviewers, 58 indicated relevant COI, 36 did not. In the "Clinical Practice Guidelines Committee", 14 members reported relevant COI, 8 stated that they did not have any. It is unclear what contribution the groups involved had to the guideline process and to which consequences the COI led.

Independence of the Coordinators/Chairs/Lead AuthorsUnabhängigkeit der Vorsitzenden/federführenden Autoren

One of the two lead authors states that he has no COI.

Abstention from Voting

The "preamble" of the guideline states (page 3422, 2nd paragraph) "Members of the Task Force with conflicts of interest on certain topics have been asked to abstain from voting on these topics". However, there is no documentation on abstentions in votes. In view of the amount of conflicts of interest, votes on some topics would then have been carried out by only a few (unbiased) authors.

External Review of the Guideline

There are no references to external counselling in the document.

Bonus Points