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Adrian Covic, Daniel Abramowicz, Annette Bruchfeld, Geert Leroux-Roels, Didier Samuel, Wim van Biesen, Carmine Zoccali, Fabien Zoulim, Raymond Vanholder, on behalf of the ERA-EDTA ERBP Advisory Board, Endorsement of the Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) hepatitis C guidelines: a European Renal Best Practice (ERBP) position statement, Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation, Volume 24, Issue 3, March 2009, Pages 719–727, https://doi.org/10.1093/ndt/gfn608
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Introduction
Recently the Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) initiative published ‘the first product of what has been an unprecedented undertaking of the renal community’ [ 1 ]: the first set of global nephrological guidelines devoted to prevention, diagnosis and treatment in hepatitis C [ 1 ]. Previously, the KDIGO Board had defined non-duplication of existing guidelines and priority to topics of worldwide interest as its primary goals. Ultimately, a major infectious disease hepatitis C (HCV) was considered as the first topic to be dealt with because ‘(i) of the larger number of available studies on the subject; (ii) HCV is an infection that can detrimentally affect patients throughout the spectrum of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and can itself cause kidney disease; and (iii) HCV is a problem of worldwide cli- nical relevance in developed and developing countries’ [ 2 ].
A group of experts was commissioned to develop a rigorous and consistent approach for the development and grading of the evidence considered for, and recommendations established by KDIGO guidelines, based on the Grades of Recommendation, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach (table 1) [ 3 ]. This approach was followed by the interdisciplinary, international and independent Work Group charged with developing the guideline. The guidelines were subjected to a three-step review process. Initially, the KDIGO Board reviewed all questions to be addressed (in December 2005). In the second phase, a first draft of the final guidelines was reviewed by the Board and representatives of Caring for Australians with Renal Impairment (CARI), United Kingdom Renal Association (UK-RA), Canadian Society of Nephrology (CSN), Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative (KDOQI) and European Best Practice Guidelines (EBPG) (in December 2006). Finally, the draft guidelines were submitted for public review and comment by any interested individual or party. All comments received by the Work Group were considered, discussed and, if relevant, included in the final document. It is thus clear that prominent European experts were also actively participating in this process of global guideline elaboration.
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