Marker States Development

Marker State Development

The European Commission Initiative on Colorectal Cancer (ECICC) has begun early development of healthcare recommendations for their upcoming guidelines on the primary prevention, screening, and diagnosis of colorectal cancer. Healthcare questions have been prioritised and soon the ECICC working group will prioritise relevant health outcomes (e.g. death, detection of colorectal cancer, etc.), which will be considered important for analysis of evidence for the first questions to be addressed by the European guidelines.

Brief descriptions of each relevant health outcome have been drafted for the European colorectal cancer guidelines. These descriptions use a standardised format and are called 'Marker states'. They are intended to be used as a referral tool for the ECICC working groups to reduce misunderstandings during the prioritisation and discussion steps of guideline development. They will also be published alongside the final recommendations to improve transparency of guideline methods.

The JRC has launched a call for feedback from stakeholders on the medical content of the draft marker states available below. The comments collected through this open consultation will be analysed for potential consideration when defining the final list of marker states.

How to comment

This website is publicly accessible. Any visitor can comment on any of the listed documents. However, readers should note that these documents have been written using medical and scientific language and are defined based on the methodological framework for guideline development, including reviews of existing literature on the topic.

The comments provided should be substantiated by evidence stating the rationale and/or supporting publications or other public documentation. In the case a reference is provided for consideration by the working group, it must state the name of authors, journal, and date of publication.

Please note contributions will not be considered if they:

• are submitted after the deadline of the feedback call,
• are not submitted via the platform provided,
• are not related to the contents of the document,
• contain complaints against institutions, personal accusations, irrelevant or offensive statements or material, and/or
• are related to policy aspects outside the scope of ECICC's activities.

You will receive acknowledgement from the system that your comments have been successfully transmitted. The JRC will accordingly assess all comments submitted in line with the aforementioned criteria.

Please note that the JRC will not provide individual responses. The assessed comments will be further evaluated by the working group and systematic review team for consideration when defining the final outputs, following the methodological framework for guideline development.