Thanks to the California Lyme Disease Association (CALDA) for this heads up.

According to Lorraine Johnson, the CALDA Lyme Policy Wonk, two poster sessions at the IDSA annual meeting last fall stated that most of IDSA treatment guidelines, including those for Lyme Disease, are based mainly on opinion, not actual scientific evidence. Only 15% of their “strong recommendations” are supported by “strong evidence.”

In an article in the medical journal Infectious Diseases in Clinical Practice, IDSA member Thomas File, Jr, MD., one of the meeting presenters, states:

Ideally, all recommendations from guidelines would be based on high-level, graded evidence (eg, randomized clinical trials). However, because published level I evidence is not often available, guideline writers are challenged with considering a vast array of different levels of support and creating clinically applicable and clear recommendations from it. Only in the minority instances is there an abundance of evidence available that leads directly to an indisputable recommendation.

Click here to download a free PDF of the journal article, Guiding in the Face of Minimal Evidence.

Also see my previous post on Lyme Disease Blog – IDSA Review Panel Upholds Treatment Guidelines.