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Management of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

GUIDELINES DEVELOPMENT AND OBJECTIVES
GUIDELINES DEVELOPMENT

The members of the DG for these CPG were from the Ministry of
Health (MoH) and the Ministry of Higher Education. There was active
involvement of a multidisciplinary Review Committee (RC) during the
process of the CPG development.

A systematic literature search was carried out using the following
electronic databases/platforms: mainly Medline via Ovid and others
e.g. Pubmed (refer to Appendix 1 for Example of Search Strategy).
The inclusion criteria are all adults at risk and with systemic lupus
erythematous (SLE) regardless of study design. The first search was
limited to literature published in the last 13 years (2009 until 2022)
for all clinical questions, on humans and in English. In addition, the
reference lists of all retrieved literature and guidelines were searched to
further identify relevant studies. Experts in the field were also contacted
for studies related to the issues addressed. All searches were
conducted from 21 February 2022 to 21 October 2022. The literature
search was repeated for all clinical questions at the end of the CPG
development process allowing any relevant papers published before 1
July 2023 to be included. Future CPG updates will consider evidence
published after this cut-off date. The details of the search strategy can
be obtained upon request from the CPG Secretariat. The DG members
take note that new documents on SLE by EULAR and Antiphospholipid
Syndrome Classification Criteria by ACR/EULAR have been published
recently after the cut-off date for retrieval of evidence of this MoH CPG.

References were also made to other guidelines on SLE as listed below:
• European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology - 2019
update of the EULAR recommendations for the management of
systemic lupus erythematosus (2019 update)
• British Society for Rheumatology - The British Society for
Rheumatology guideline for the management of systemic lupus
erythematosus in adults (2018)
• van Vollenhoven RF, Mosca M, Bertsias G, et al. - Treat-to-target
in systemic lupus erythematosus: recommendations from an
international task force (2014)
A total of 11 main clinical questions were developed under different
sections. Members of the DG were assigned individual questions
within these sections. Refer to Appendix 2 for Clinical Questions.
The DG members met 24 times throughout the development of these
guidelines. All literature retrieved was appraised by at least two DG
members using Critical Appraisal Skill Programme checklist, presented
in evidence tables and further discussed in each DG meeting. All
statements and recommendations formulated after that were agreed

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