Implication of global nephrology guidelines in Asia and 'Asian CKD Best Practice Guidelines'

By establishing Kidney Diseases: Improving Global Outcome (KDIGO), nephrology has taken an important step towards developing global clinical practice guidelines (CPG). KDIGO published its first CPG on 'Hepatitis C in CKD' in 2008 and has since published two new CPG ('CKD-MBD' and 'Kidney Transplant Recipient') in 2009. A major obstacle to implement CPG is the lack of both high-quality evidence for regionally-specific areas of medicine and a lack of resources in many countries in our region. However, an endeavor by the Asian Forum of CKD Initiative (AFCKDI) may make it possible to overcome these obstacles. By developing regionally-specific CKD guidelines, the AFCKDI might identify relevant evidence gaps and by using specific expertise develop a standard of patient care appropriate to the Asia-Pacific region. This can be accomplished only by engaging a group of international experts who fully represent the Asia-Pacific area.