[Clinical practice guideline for Tripterygium Glycosides/Tripterygium wilfordii Tablets in treatment of rheumatoid arthritis].

Tripterygium wilfordii Hook.f.(TwHF) is one of the most effective traditional Chinese herbal medicines against rheumatoid arthritis. As the representative agents of TwHF, Tripterygium Glycoside Tablets(TGT) and Tripterygium wilfordii Tablets(TWT) were included as Class A drugs in the 2019 edition of Medicine Catalogue for National Basic Medical Insurance, Injury Insurance and Maternity Insurance, and TGT was also included in 2018 edition of National Essential Drug List and 2015 edition of Chinese Pharmacopoeia. However, it is difficult to grasp the specific clinical applications of TGT and TWT. Side effects occur from time to time. The curative effect is uneven in patients. And the package inserts of TGT and TWT are not described in details. In order to standardize the clinical application of Tripterygium wilfordii preparations, 38 authoritative units and 48 well-known experts in rheumatoid immunology clinical department, drug supervision and management, pharmacy and evidence-based medicine research fields jointly developed Tripterygium Glycoside Tablets and Tripterygium wilfordii Tablets Medication Guide for reference in clinical application, teaching and scientific research. The guideline followed the "evidence-based, consensus-assisted and experience-based" principles to form "recommendations" for the evidence supported ones, and form "consensus suggestions" for those without evidence support by using nominal group method. In this way, the medication recommendations on function, usage and dosage, drug combinations, precautions, efficacy, safety and other aspects of TGT and TWT can be provided. The application of this Guide will help to avoid or reduce the adverse reactions of T. wilfordii preparations, enhance the efficacy and reduce the cost of medicine, with certain demonstration and promotion values to improve the rational use level of traditional Chinese medicine.

[Editorial explanation for Clinical practice guideline for Tripterygium Glycosides/Tripterygium wilfordii Tablets in treatment of rheumatoid arthritis].

Clinical practice guideline for Tripterygium Glycosides/Tripterygium wilfordii Tablets in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis(T/CACM 1337-2020) was approved on June, 2020 by the Standardization Office of Chinese Association of Chinese Medicine. Our group developed this guideline for the clinical application of Tripterygium Glycosides/Tripterygium wilfordii Tablets according to the manual for the clinical experts consensus of Chinese patent medicine from January, 2018, when this project was approved by Chinese Association of Chinese Medicine. In this article, the detailed information on our compilation process was provided, in order to facilitate the understanding and the application of the guideline, as well as provide reference for the development of clinical practice guideline for other Chinese patent medicine.