Guideline for the diagnosis and treatment of rheumatoid arthritis with integrated traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine to increase efficiency and reduce toxicity

Rheumatoid arthritis imposes a huge disease burden. Existing practice guidelines do not meet the needs of integrated traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. We established a guideline working group consists of a steering committee, a secretary group, an evidence evaluation group, a consensus group and a review group and developed a guideline following the guidance of the World Health Organization Handbook and the Chinese Medical Association. The guideline includes 35 recommendations which reached consensus by the two rounds Delphi surveys. These recommendations were formulated to address the following themes of most concern to clinician: diagnostic imaging, disease staging, traditional Chinese medicine syndromes, effectiveness and toxicity of integrated traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine.