Guidelines for the Provision and Assessment of Nutrition Support Therapy in the Adult Critically Ill Patient : Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) and American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (A.S.P.E.N.)

The Atlanta classification of acute pancreatitis enabled standardised reporting of research and aided communication between clinicians. Deficiencies identified and improved understanding of the disease make a revision necessary. A web-based consultation was undertaken in 2007 to ensure wide participation of pancreatologists. After an initial meeting, the Working Group sent a draft document to 11 national and international pancreatic associations. This working draft was forwarded to all members. Revisions were made in response to comments, and the web-based consultation was repeated three times. The final consensus was reviewed, and only statements based on published evidence were retained. The revised classification of acute pancreatitis identified two phases of the disease: early and late. Severity is classified as mild, moderate or severe. Mild acute pancreatitis, the most common form, has no organ failure, local or systemic complications and usually resolves in the first week. Moderately severe acute pancreatitis is defined by the presence of transient organ failure, local complications or exacerbation of co-morbid disease. Severe acute pancreatitis is defined by persistent organ failure, that is, organ failure >48 h. Local complications are peripancreatic fluid collections, pancreatic and peripancreatic necrosis (sterile or infected), pseudocyst and walled-off necrosis (sterile or infected). We present a standardised template for reporting CT images. This international, web-based consensus provides clear definitions to classify acute pancreatitis using easily identified clinical and radiologic criteria. The wide consultation among pancreatologists to reach this consensus should encourage widespread adoption.

The "Grades of Recommendation, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation" (GRADE) approach provides guidance for rating quality of evidence and grading strength of recommendations in health care. It has important implications for those summarizing evidence for systematic reviews, health technology assessment, and clinical practice guidelines. GRADE provides a systematic and transparent framework for clarifying questions, determining the outcomes of interest, summarizing the evidence that addresses a question, and moving from the evidence to a recommendation or decision. Wide dissemination and use of the GRADE approach, with endorsement from more than 50 organizations worldwide, many highly influential (http://www.gradeworkinggroup.org/), attests to the importance of this work. This article introduces a 20-part series providing guidance for the use of GRADE methodology that will appear in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

In the GRADE approach, randomized trials start as high-quality evidence and observational studies as low-quality evidence, but both can be rated down if most of the relevant evidence comes from studies that suffer from a high risk of bias. Well-established limitations of randomized trials include failure to conceal allocation, failure to blind, loss to follow-up, and failure to appropriately consider the intention-to-treat principle. More recently recognized limitations include stopping early for apparent benefit and selective reporting of outcomes according to the results. Key limitations of observational studies include use of inappropriate controls and failure to adequately adjust for prognostic imbalance. Risk of bias may vary across outcomes (e.g., loss to follow-up may be far less for all-cause mortality than for quality of life), a consideration that many systematic reviews ignore. In deciding whether to rate down for risk of bias--whether for randomized trials or observational studies--authors should not take an approach that averages across studies. Rather, for any individual outcome, when there are some studies with a high risk, and some with a low risk of bias, they should consider including only the studies with a lower risk of bias. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.