[Orthopedics between reason and passion. Guidelines and shadow lines.]

Romanini, Emilio; Padua, Roberto; Tucci, Gabriele; Zanoli, Gustavo

For over 20 years the Evidence-Based Orthopaedics Working Group (GLOBE) has been promoting evidence-based medicine (EBM) in orthopaedics and traumatology. However, despite a constant and wide-ranging editorial production and fruitful collaborations with colleagues and institutions at national and international level, the orthopaedic scientific community finds it difficult to recognize the EBM model as a solid reference: there are few guidelines available, there is little awareness of their usefulness, and the complexity of the methodology of production and adaptation of documents widens the gap between the orthopaedic real world and that of clinical epidemiology. After a quick analysis of the causes of this contrast, the authors reflect on the possible solutions to the problem, and propose to collaborate for a simplification of the guidelines production methodology, using innovative models of literature review, which have proved to be effective to make the best knowledge available quickly during the CoViD-19 pandemic.