From clinical practice guideline development to trial registration: A systematic investigation of research pipeline for inflammatory bowel disease

Background Clinical practice guidelines help practitioners manage patients in an effective and systematic way, and they assist in making evidence-based decisions related to diagnosis and treatment. Each recommendation is ranked based on evidence. The goal of this study is to determine gaps in research for inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) by using the low-level evidence recommendations. Methods We extracted low-level evidence recommendations set forth by the American College of Gastroenterology in IBD, ulcerative colitis (UC), and Crohn’s disease. ClinicalTrials.gov , the World Health Organization’s International Clinical Trials Registry Platform and PubMed were then used to locate studies relevant to the recommendations. Results There were 30 low-level evidence recommendations, and 23 had recent or ongoing studies addressing them. We screened 2938 trials and 4321 published articles, 221 of which addressed low-quality recommendations. There were five recommendations that received the majority of research attention (143/221, 65%). Conclusion This study used clinical practice guidelines to help determine areas of needed research in IBD, UC, and Crohn’s disease. By searching trial registries and articles indexed on PubMed, we identified the extent to which studies were being conducted to address research gaps. Of the gaps identified, five recommendations received most of the attention. While most of the significant gaps had some recent or ongoing research, our study found several areas where investigation is still needed. Clinical practice guidelines are an effective method to prioritize future research.