Critical review of clinical practice guidelines for evaluation of neck mass in adults

Introduction: Several clinical practice guidelines have been produced and disseminated for the assessment of neck mass. However, to date, the quality and methodological rigor of these clinical practice guidelines have not been evaluated. Objective: To identify and evaluate the methodological quality of national and international guidelines for the evaluation and treatment of cervical masses in adults. Methods: We conducted a comprehensive search of EMBASE, MEDLINE/PubMed, SCOPUS and grey literature sources until September 2020. The quality of these guidelines was assessed by four reviewers using the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation, 2nd edition (AGREE II). Domain scores were considered acceptable quality if they scored > 60%, and Intraclass Correlation Coefficients (ICC) were calculated to assess agreement among the appraisers. Results: Seven guidelines were assessed for evaluation. Among these, only the American Academy of Otolaryngology (AAO), Cancer Care Manitoba (CCMB), and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) achieved an overall rating of "high". The remaining four guidelines achieved ratings of either "average" or "low". The "Scope and Purpose" domain achieved the highest mean score (94.4%+/- 5.0%), and lowest was "Applicability" (51.5%+/- 29.2%). ICC analysis showed substantial to very good agreement across all domains (0.75-0.98). Conclusion: These findings highlight the variability in methodologic quality of guidelines for the evaluation and management of adult neck mass. The results from this analysis highlight the need to improve guidelines development process for this topic and may guide the selection and use of these guidelines in clinical practice.