"The lack of ‘do not do’ recommendations or suggestions means that there was no definitive evidence of harm or lack of efficacy for the interventions examined, Dr. Oatis explained.
These proposed revisions to the current ACR recommendations, which were last revised in 2000, with an update in 2005 following the withdrawal of rofecoxib from the market, are currently under review by the journal Arthritis Care and Research, and have been submitted to the ACR Committee on Quality of Care for review before they are sent the ACR board of directors for final approval, said Dr. Marc C. Hochberg, professor and head of the division of rheumatology and clinical immunology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.
The ACR awarded the contract for the project to the University of Maryland with Dr. Hochberg as the principal investigator. He is also a member of the project steering committee.
"Hopefully, these will come to the point where the ACR board of directors will be satisfied, and we’ll have a publication in 2011," he said.
Dr. Hochberg disclosed that he has received research support from the National Institutes of Health, and has served as a consultant or on an advisory board or data safety monitoring board for numerous pharmaceutical companies. The other presenters had no disclosures.