Clinical practice guideline for the management of patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in Peruvian Social Security (EsSalud)

This paper summarizes the evidence-based clinical recommendations for the assessment and management of patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in Peruvian Social Security (EsSalud). A guide writing team (GWT) was convened, which included specialized physicians and methodologists. The GWT asked 8 clinical questions to be responded by the Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPG). Detailed searches of systematic reviews and – when it was considered as pertinent – primary studied featured in PubMed and CENTRAL during 2019 were performed. Evidence for responding each of the proposed clinical questions was selected. Certainty of the evidence was determined using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) methodology. In scheduled workshops, the GWT used the GRADE methodology for reviewing the evidence and propose recommendations, the points for good clinical practice, and the assessment and management flowcharts. This CPG worked on 8 clinical questions, which were divided in 4 topics: diagnosis, general measures, chemotherapy management for ALL, and transplantation. On the basis of these questions, 5 recommendations were formulated (3 strong recommendations and 2 conditional recommendations), 20 points for good clinical practice, and 3 flow charts.