Healthy Skepticism Library item: 19454

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Nissen SE
Can We Trust Cardiovascular Practice Guidelines?
Arch Intern Med 2011 Mar 28; 171:(6):584
http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/extract/171/6/584

Abstract:

Clinical practice guidelines play an enormously important role in society and the practice of medicine. Individual physicians use CPGs to determine which diagnostic tests and therapeutic strategies are most appropriate for their patients. Government and third-party payers use CPGs to determine which procedures and drugs should receive reimbursement. Hospitals and clinics use these CPGs to decide when innovative, but expensive, therapies are sufficiently mature to warrant a major investment. Increasingly, government, the public and the media use CPGs as a benchmark to gauge the quality of medical practice for both hospitals and individual physicians.1-3 Accordingly, protecting the integrity and reliability of CPGs is essential to society and fundamental to the practice of evidence-based medicine.4

INDEPENDENCE AND RELIABILITY OF CPGs IN CARDIOVASCULAR MEDICINE

In this issue of the Archives, Mendelson et al raise disturbing questions about the independence and reliability of CPGs in cardiovascular medicine. They report the presence of financial relationships with commercial entities . . .