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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Pharmacology of Infectious Diseases
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1443487
Appraisal of Guidelines and Variations in Recommendations on Drug Therapy for Invasive Aspergillosis Prevention and Treatment
Provisionally accepted- 1 Yantai Yuhuangding Hospital, Yantai, China
- 2 The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, Qingdao, Shandong Province, China
- 3 Yantai No.1 Middle School of Shandong, Yantai, China
- 4 Yantai YEDA Hospital, Yantai, Shandong Province, China
Background: In recent years, many guidelines related to aspergillosis have been published worldwide. However, no studies have applied assessment tools to systematically evaluate the quality of these guidelines.Objectives: This study aimed to assess the quality of clinical practice guidelines and compared their recommendations related to drug therapy for the prevention and treatment of invasive aspergillosis.Methods: Electronic databases, guideline development organizations, and professional society websites were searched to identify clinical practice guidelines for invasive aspergillosis published between January 1, 2013, and September 12, 2023. The Appraisal of Guidelines Research and Evaluation (AGREE) II instrument was used to evaluate the quality of the guidelines.Recommendations for the drug prevention and treatment of invasive aspergillosis were extracted and descriptively analyzed.Results: Among the 18 included clinical practice guidelines, the median scores and interquartile range for each AGREE II domain were: scope and purpose, 76.39% (69.1%, 80.21%); stakeholder involvement, 59.72% (50.35%, 67.02%); rigor of development, 64.58% (44.4%, 72.27%); clarity and presentation, 81.25% (68.06%, 91.32%); applicability, 41.67% (36.46%, 47.92%); and editorial independence, 76.05% (50%, 87.5%). Voriconazole and isavuconazole are recommended as firstline therapy for invasive aspergillosis currently. Posaconazole remains the first choice for invasive aspergillosis prophylaxis in patients with hematological malignancies.The development processes and reporting of invasive aspergillosis -related clinical practice guidelines varied and their quality requires improvement. The guideline recommendations have changed since the approval of isavuconazole.
Keywords: invasive aspergillosis, Therapeutics, Antifungal Agents, Practice guideline, AGREE II
Received: 04 Jun 2024; Accepted: 10 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Sun, Yang, Wang, Wei and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Meng Wei, Yantai Yuhuangding Hospital, Yantai, China
Hong-Yan Li, Yantai Yuhuangding Hospital, Yantai, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.