Low Seroprevalence of COVID-19 among Healthy Malaysian Residents in Kepala Batas, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia, During the Fourth Pandemic Wave

Journal

Malaysian Journal of Medicine and Health Sciences

Year

2024

Materials & Methods

This Pan-Asian adaptation of the current ESMO Clinical Practice Guidelines20 was prepared in accordance with the principles of ESMO standard operating procedures (https://www.esmo.org/Guidelines/ESMO-Guidelines-Methodology) and was a KSMO–ESMO initiative endorsed by the Chinese Society of Clinical Oncology (CSCO), the Indonesian Society of Hematology and Medical Oncology (ISHMO), the Indian Society of Medical and Paediatric Oncology (ISMPO), the Japanese Society of Medical Oncology (JSMO), the Malaysian Oncological Society (MOS), the Philippine Society of Medical Oncology (PSMO), the Singapore Society of Oncology (SSO), the Taiwan Oncology Society (TOS) and the Thai Society of Clinical Oncology (TSCO). An international panel of experts was selected from the KSMO (n = 5), the ESMO (n = 3) and two experts from each of the nine other oncological societies. Only two of the five expert members from the KSMO (JS and Y-HP) were allowed to vote on the recommendations together with the experts from each of the nine other Asian oncology societies (n = 20). All 20 Asian experts provided comments on the pre-meeting survey and one consensus response per society (see Supplementary Table S2, available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esmoop.2024.102974). Only one voting member per Asian society was present at the hybrid/face-to-face meeting. None of the additional members of KSMO and none of the ESMO experts or additional representatives of ESMO were allowed to vote and were present in an advisory role only (see Supplementary Material: Methodology, available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esmoop.2024.102974). All the Asian experts (n = 20) approved the revised recommendations.

Conclusion

The results of the voting by the Asian experts both before and after the hybrid virtual/face-to-face meeting in Seoul showed >85% concordance with the ESMO recommendations for the diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of patients with early breast cancer20 (Supplementary Table S2, available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esmoop.2024.102974). Following the ‘face-to-face’ discussions, revisions were made to the wording of ‘recommendations 1a, 2e, 3i, 3l, 3m, 4c, 6f, 6i.1, 6j.2, 8d and 8h’, and for ‘recommendations 3v, 4c, 4g, 8d and 8h’ the GoR was downgraded at least for part of the recommendation ’(Table 1), resulting in a 100% consensus being achieved in terms of acceptability for all the recommendations listed in Table 1. After the consensus meeting, revisions to the wording of ‘recommendations 1e, 1g, 1i, 1m, 5b, 5c, 6c and 7d’ were made to make them consistent with the revisions requested by the reviewers of the original ESMO guidelines.20 These recommendations therefore constitute the consensus clinical practice guidelines for the diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of patients with early breast cancer in Asia. The variations in the availability for the patients of diagnostic testing, drugs and therefore treatment possibilities, between the different regions, reflect the differences in the organisation of their health care systems and their reimbursement strategies, and will have a significant impact on the implementation of the scientific recommendations in certain of the regions of Asia. Thus, it is anticipated these guidelines may be used to guide policy initiatives to improve the access of all patients with early breast cancer, across the different regions of Asia, to state-of-the-art cancer care, including the enrolment into clinical trials, whilst recognising the constraints imposed by the heterogeneous socioeconomic situations of the different countries and regions of Asia.

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https://www.esmoopen.com/article/S2059-7029(24)00742-7/fulltext

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