leitlinienwatch.de - ESC Leitlinie Infective Endocarditis (Guidelines on Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of), engl.

Evaluation by Leitlinienwatch

27.02.16

PTs.	Criterion
2	Transparency European Society of Cardiology (ESC) guideline outside the German AWMF register (http://eurheartj.oxfordjournals.org/content/36/44/3075). Detailed information regarding potential conflicts of interest for each author is published on the ESC homepage: http://www.escardio.org/static_file/Escardio/Guidelines/Publications/IE/DOI_Summary_2015_IE.pdf There is no transparent evaluation of conflicts of interest as part of the guideline process.
0	Composition of the Guideline Working Group 13 out of 20 authors in the guideline working group declare financial conflicts of interest.
0	Independence of the Coordinators/Chairs/Lead AuthorsUnabhängigkeit der Vorsitzenden/federführenden Autoren Both lead authors declare financial conflicts of interest.
0	Abstention from Voting There is no documented rule regarding abstentions from voting in authors with COI.
0	External Review of the Guideline An external review via a publicly accessible website did not occur.
1	Bonus Points The guidelines were assessed internally by 21 reviewers. These reviewers also declared their conflicts of interest. How this group was recruited is not documented, however.

Explanations to the evaluation criteria

Overall score

Good! (11-18)

Warning! (6-10)

Needs reform! (0-5)

Comment

The ESC guidelines also apply in Germany, as the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Kardiologie (German Society of Cardiology) has adopted the ESC guidelines. A large number of the authors of the ESC guidelines “Infective Endocarditis” declare financial conflicts of interest. A standard guideline report that would explain the rules regarding abstention from voting, study evaluation methods, recruitment of the guideline working group, and the review process is not available. We would like to note that financial conflicts of interest probably only play a minor role in these guidelines, as the guidelines primarily recommend off-patent medications and surgical or imaging procedures.