European best practice quo vadis? From European best practice guidelines (EBPG) to European renal best practice (ERBP)

Although medical guidelines generally are graded according to their evidence level, low evidence 'judgement' are generally perceived as much as absolute truth by the medical community as high evidence 'guidelines' are. Being aware of this bias, a workgroup appointed by the European Renal Association-European Dialysis and Transplantation Association (ERA-EDTA), the members of which are the authors of the current publication, decided that European nephrology guidelines issued by the Association should be published only as 'guidelines' in the case of high-level evidence; otherwise they should be named 'recommendations' or 'position statements' and be published in a different format. Acknowledging that in nephrology, high levels of evidence are often lacking, it was also decided to rename the responsible body from European Best Practice Guidelines (EBPG) to European Renal Best Practice (ERBP). The present publication reviews the arguments based on which this decision was taken.