Objective: To appraise clinical practice guidelines for anaplastic thyroid carcinoma treatment and management using the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation II tool.
Methods: A literature search was performed using MEDLINE/PubMed, Embase, Scopus, Cochrane, and Google Scholar. Four reviewers evaluated clinical practice guidelines utilising Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation II, with domain scores requiring a threshold of greater than 60 per cent. Inter-reviewer agreement was evaluated using intraclass correlation coefficients.
Results: Twelve clinical practice guidelines were evaluated after application of inclusion and exclusion criteria. There were two "high-", four "average-", and six "low-" quality clinical practice guidelines. The domains with the highest scores were "clarity of presentation" (69.44 ± 16.75) and "scope and purpose" (68.87 ± 20.88), while "applicability" (7.12 ± 6.17) and "rigor of development" (50.26 ± 20.77) had the lowest scores. Intraclass correlation coefficients showed a high level of inter-reviewer agreement (0.689-0.924; good-excellent).
Conclusion: These results showcased wide variability in quality amongst guidelines for the treatment and management of anaplastic thyroid carcinoma. These findings necessitate greater standardisation among clinical practice guidelines and greater focus on the applicability of recommended practices.
Keywords: cancer; evidence-based medicine; systematic review; thyroid; treatment outcome.