TY - JOUR

T1 - EULAR recommendations for the reporting of ultrasound studies in rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMDs)

AU - Costantino, Félicie

AU - Carmona, Loreto

AU - Boers, Maarten

AU - Backhaus, Marina

AU - Balint, Peter V.

AU - Bruyn, George A.

AU - Christensen, Robin

AU - Conaghan, Philip G.

AU - Ferreira, Ricardo J.O.

AU - Garrido-Castro, Juan Luis

AU - Guillemin, Francis

AU - Hammer, Hilde Berner

AU - van der Heijde, Désirée

AU - Iagnocco, Annamaria

AU - Kortekaas, Marion C.

AU - Landewé, Robert B.M.

AU - Mandl, Peter

AU - Naredo, Esperanza

AU - Schmidt, Wolfgang A.

AU - Terslev, Lene

AU - Terwee, Caroline B.

AU - Thiele, Ralf

AU - D'Agostino, Maria Antonietta

N1 - Funding Information: Funding This project was funded by the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR). PGC is supported in part by the UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Leeds Biomedical Research Centre. RC is supported by a core grant from the Oak Foundation (OCAY-18–774-OFIL). Funding Information: Competing interests FC reports personal fees from Lilly and Novartis France. MB reports personal fees from Novartis, BMS and Pfizer. RC is a founding member of the Technical Advisory Group of OMERACT, an organization that develops outcome measures in rheumatology and receives arms-length funding from 12 companies. DvdH reports personal fees from AbbVie, Amgen, Astellas, AstraZeneca, Bayer, BMS, Boehringer Ingelheim, Celgene, Cyxone, Daiichi, Eisai, Eli-Lilly, Galapagos, Gilead, Glaxo-Smith-Kline, Janssen, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, Regeneron, Roche, Sanofi, Takeda, UCB Pharma and is Director of Imaging Rheumatology bv. AI reports grants from Abbvie, MSD, and Alfasigma and personal fees from AbbVie, Abiogen, Alfasigma, Biogen, BMS, Celgene, Eli-Lilly, Janssen, MSD, Novartis, Sanofi, Sanofi Genzyme. RBL reports personal fees from AbbVie, Galapagos, Gilead, Jansen, Eli-Lilly, Novartis, Pfizer, UCB. PM reports grants and personal fees from AbbVie, Novartis, Janssen, personal fees from Celgene, grants from Merck Sharp & Dohme, UCB, Roche. RT reports personal fees from Amgen, AbbVie, Novartis. MADA reports personal fees from Abbvie, BMS, Novartis, Celgene, Janssen and grants from Pfizer. Publisher Copyright: © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2021. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.

PY - 2021/7/1

Y1 - 2021/7/1

N2 - To produce European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) recommendations for the reporting of ultrasound studies in rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMDs). Based on the literature reviews and expert opinion (through Delphi surveys), a taskforce of 23 members (12 experts in ultrasound in RMDs, 9 in methodology and biostatistics together with a patient research partner and a health professional in rheumatology) developed a checklist of items to be reported in every RMD study using ultrasound. This checklist was further refined by involving a panel of 79 external experts (musculoskeletal imaging experts, methodologists, journal editors), who evaluated its comprehensibility, feasibility and comprehensiveness. Agreement on each proposed item was assessed with an 11-point Likert scale, grading from 0 (total disagreement) to 10 (full agreement). Two face-to-face meetings, as well as two Delphi rounds of voting, resulted in a final checklist of 23 items, including a glossary of terminology. Twenty-one of these were considered ‘mandatory’ items to be reported in every study (such as blinding, development of scoring systems, definition of target pathologies) and 2 ‘optional’ to be reported only if applicable, such as possible confounding factors (ie, ambient conditions) or experience of the sonographers. An EULAR taskforce developed a checklist to ensure transparent and comprehensive reporting of aspects concerning research and procedures that need to be presented in studies using ultrasound in RMDs. This checklist, if widely adopted by authors and editors, will greatly improve the interpretability of study development and results, including the assessment of validity, generalisability and applicability.

AB - To produce European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) recommendations for the reporting of ultrasound studies in rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMDs). Based on the literature reviews and expert opinion (through Delphi surveys), a taskforce of 23 members (12 experts in ultrasound in RMDs, 9 in methodology and biostatistics together with a patient research partner and a health professional in rheumatology) developed a checklist of items to be reported in every RMD study using ultrasound. This checklist was further refined by involving a panel of 79 external experts (musculoskeletal imaging experts, methodologists, journal editors), who evaluated its comprehensibility, feasibility and comprehensiveness. Agreement on each proposed item was assessed with an 11-point Likert scale, grading from 0 (total disagreement) to 10 (full agreement). Two face-to-face meetings, as well as two Delphi rounds of voting, resulted in a final checklist of 23 items, including a glossary of terminology. Twenty-one of these were considered ‘mandatory’ items to be reported in every study (such as blinding, development of scoring systems, definition of target pathologies) and 2 ‘optional’ to be reported only if applicable, such as possible confounding factors (ie, ambient conditions) or experience of the sonographers. An EULAR taskforce developed a checklist to ensure transparent and comprehensive reporting of aspects concerning research and procedures that need to be presented in studies using ultrasound in RMDs. This checklist, if widely adopted by authors and editors, will greatly improve the interpretability of study development and results, including the assessment of validity, generalisability and applicability.

KW - healthcare

KW - outcome and process assessment

KW - quality indicators

KW - ultrasonography

U2 - 10.1136/annrheumdis-2020-219816

DO - 10.1136/annrheumdis-2020-219816

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 33483318

AN - SCOPUS:85099968717

VL - 80

SP - 840

EP - 847

JO - Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases

JF - Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases

SN - 0003-4967

IS - 7

ER -