Guidelines

Welcome to the Guidelines Hub

ESCP aims to establish high quality international guidelines for the treatment of diseases within its scope, using the best available evidence. By providing this guidance, ESCP hopes to improve the outcomes such as recurrence of disease, complications, symptoms and patient satisfaction.

In 2017 ESCP established its Guidelines Committee, whose members have already collaborated in the production of several published guidelines.

The processes and methods are informed by internationally recognised criteria of quality of guidelines.

Below are projects that the Guidelines Committee and colleagues are currently working on and a committee update.

Please view our Guidance Disclaimer.

Joint European clinical practice guideline for faecal incontinence
Guideline on the diagnosis and treatment of cryptoglandular perianal fistula
Social media guideline
Guideline on the use of mesh in the pelvis

Joint European clinical practice guideline for faecal incontinence

A joint project between UEG, ESCP, ESNM and ESPCG.

This project is financially supported by the UEG Activity Grant programme.

The scope of the guideline has been defined. The guideline development group (GDG) and different subgroups has been formed. At the second meeting, the GDG defined a hierarchy of important outcomes and formulated the research questions of the six chapters, we are now performing the literature search. We expen the next meeting wiht the GDG in autumn 2020.

Guideline on the diagnosis and treatment of cryptoglandular perianal fistula

Led by Kevin Gottgens, Lillian Reza, Phil Tozer and David Zimmerman, this Guideline Development Group is in the process of being formed.

The GRADE methodology will be used to develop the guideline - please watch this explanation before applying.

UPDATE: Developing a Core Outcome Set for Cryptoglandular Anal Fistula

Researchers based at St. Marks Hospital, London, UK and Maastricht University Medical Centre+, The Netherlands, are establishing a Europe wide collaboration to better understand the impact and management of cryptoglandular anal fistula.

If you are a colorectal surgeo or gastroenterologist with a special interest in cryptoglandular anal fistula

If you are a radiologist with a special interest in perianal fistula

We would like to hear from you!

We need your help to develop a Core Outcome Set: a standardised set of outcomes that should be measured and reported when deciding if fistula treatment is successful.

The study will involve completing a series of online surveys (±10 minutes each) and an optional online consensus meeting.

If you would like to participate or want more information, please email your name and speciality to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

We look forward to hearing from you.

AFCOS Study Management Team

Social media guideline

Steering committee: Rosa Jimenez and Luis Sánchez-Guillén (Chairs), Richard Brady, Julio Mayol, Gianluca Pellino and Des Winter.

Members: Ruth Blanco Colino, Gaetano Gallo, Francesco Pata, Jonathan Segal, James Ashcroft, Gonzalo P Martín-Martín, Hector Guadalajara, Jana Dziakova, Alaa El-Hussuna, Mariyah Anwer.

Although some headway has been made, the shortages remain to this day due to the pandemic. During these last months we have defined which members will work in the three sections of the Guideline:

Social media resources in colorectal surgery
Relationship between professionals
Privacy, patient information protection and patient involvement

We had also planned a meeting before the summer due to the huge amount of work, we have no postponed this to September. We aim to have some progress during September and move the guideline forward.

Guideline on the use of mesh in the pelvis

The steering committee includes: Y Maeda, PA Lehur, L Lundby and C Vaizey.

Guidance has been completed and put out for public consulation together with patients's survey until the end of August 2020. There was a delay to lauch and run this process due to COVID-19 pandemic. The guidance has been submitted to Colorectal Disease. Further updates will follow.

Committee Update

ESCP’s Guidelines Committee had a busy but productive time in Vienna.

They convened for a face-to-face meeting prior to the Annual Meeting began, to take stock of activities to date and discuss future guidelines, a discussion around legal framework may be required to protect our guidances and a new assistant chair was appointed.

For the first time, we held an educational session titled 'How to develop guidelines'. We had a talk on future guidelines by the current chairman Miss Carolynne Vaizey, followed by a talk on overview of guideline development by Miss Yasuko Maeda. The nitty-gritty of actual development were expertly explained by Professor Jos Kleijnen and two young members of the committee, Dr Schultz and Dr van Tol, gave accounts of their experiences developing diverticulitis and haemorrhoids guideline respectively.

The session was well attended and we were delighted to hear from many with inquiries about future opportunities.