Five years of implementation of guidelines in hematology and transfusion medicine in Brazil.

Abstract

In 2009, the Associacao Brasileira de Hematologia e Hemoterapia (ABHH) started to participate in an important mission proposed by the Associacao Medica Brasileira (AMB) and the Conselho Federal de Medicina named “Project Guidelines”. This project had already been adopted by some other specialties. It aims to determine diagnostic, monitoring, prevention and therapeutic practices according to the best scientific evidence available in the international literature. Some attempts had already been made within hematology, but without systematization or continuity. Thus the ABHH brought together a group of experts representative of the most important teaching and research institutions of Brazil and from the most varied areas of knowledge in hematology to discuss diverse issues. After training, this group prepared several guidelines from the results of systematic investigations of the literature. Seventeen priority themes, working groups and their coordinators were defined as were the start and end dates for each issue. It was decided that all the reports would be published in Portuguese in the journal of the Associacao Medica Brasileira (RAMB) and in English in the Revista Brasileira de Hematologia e Hemoterapia (RBHH). The working methodology included regular meetings between the group of researchers and those who were carrying out the systematic reviews of the literature. The most important questions were identified by experts of different fields within clinical hematology, pediatric hematology and transfusion medicine. The first set of guidelines, completed and published in 2012, was related to chronic myeloid leukemia,1 an