According to Dr. Hahn, when the voting was tallied, some areas of the expert opinions did not coincide with current textbook information in how to treat lupus nephritis. New scenarios were therefore constructed to clarify the clinical situation. “You find that, with this method, there are some answers that don’t seem to be in line with current practice, and therefore it is likely that people voting did not interpret the scenario in the same way,” Dr. Hahn notes. “Part of the process is to look where there is a lot of discrepancy in people’s opinions. There were different interpretations of scenarios between experts, so we reconstructed [these hypothetical situations].”
Participating doctors were chosen based on their expertise with writing guidelines, their experience with leading large major clinical trials, or a combination of both. Most of the nephrologists chosen to work alongside their ACR counterparts “have worked on U.S. guidelines of nephrology before,” according to Dr. Hahn.
