About Guidelines
The role of the ESGAR Research Committee is to initiate, coordinate and oversee the production and progress of ESGAR guidelines through to their completion and publication. Guideline-specific working groups that comprise ESGAR members who are experts in the field will develop these ESGAR guidelines.
The ESGAR Research Committee envisages two principal types of guidelines as follows:
- Monodisciplinary guidelines will be developed under sole ESGAR stewardship and will normally concern technical performance and protocols relevant to abdominal imaging using high technology imaging platforms.
- Multidisciplinary guidelines will normally describe the role of abdominal imaging in specific clinical circumstances, including comparison of multiple imaging techniques where appropriate. These multidisciplinary guidelines will normally be developed in collaboration with one or more relevant clinical societies.
ESGAR Guideline Development Manual
The Research Committee has developed a document describing the development process of an ESGAR guideline. This document is to be used for monodisciplinary ESGAR guidelines and may be used in multidisciplinary guidelines (to be determined together with the other involved society/societies).
Downloads
Call for experts
ESGAR evidence-based guidelines on local staging of colon cancer
Application deadline: November 1, 2026
The ESGAR Research Committee is seeking experts to contribute to the first edition of the ESGAR evidence-based consensus guidelines on local staging of colon cancer.
The guideline will address:
- Recommended imaging techniques for local staging of colon cancer
- Strengths, limitations, and clinical implications of local imaging staging
- Recommendations for structured reporting
The guideline will not cover the assessment of distant metastatic disease or the local staging of rectal cancer, as these topics are addressed in separate guidelines.
Applicants should include a brief summary of their expertise in this field, highlighting relevant publications and presentations, involvement in clinical trials, and previous experience with guideline development.
Selection of the expert panel will be based on academic expertise, previous contributions to the field, and the need to ensure a diverse and geographically representative working group.
Interested ESGAR members are invited to submit an expression of interest to the ESGAR Office via this online form.
Young ESGAR Representatives
The Research Committee is also inviting applications from 1–2 Young ESGAR representatives to join the guideline working group.
The selected representatives will play an active role in the guideline development process by:
- Coordinating and performing the literature search
- Summarising the evidence in evidence tables
- Assessing the quality of the available literature
Interested Young ESGAR members are invited to submit a short motivation letter, their CV, and a brief overview of their experience in colon cancer research and/or systematic literature reviews and evidence synthesis via this online form.
Guidelines in progress
ONGOING GUIDELINES
- ESGAR/ESUR Guidelines on CT in Acute Abdomen
- ESGAR/EANM Consensus Guidelines for Imaging Anal Cancer
- ESGAR guideline for training and quality assurance in CT colonography
GUIDELINES IN COLLABORATION WITH OR SUPPORTED BY ESGAR
- Guideline on Initial Assessment and Management of pancreatic lesions for Primary Care Practitioners (ESPCG)
- Pain management in acute pancreatitis (EPC)
- 2025 evidence-based European multi-societal guideline for pancreatic cancer (E-AHPBA/ESSO)
- Global guidelines on cystic neoplasms of the pancreas
- Management and follow-up of gallbladder polyps: updated joint guidelines (ESGAR, EAES, EFISDS and ESGE)
- UEG initiative to develop quality indicators for pancreatic cancer care (EPC)
Proposal of new topics for ESGAR Guidelines
The membership is invited to propose topics for guidelines. Please be sufficiently specific in the topic description, indicate whether you think this should be more a technical guideline or a clinical (multidisciplinary) guideline and also describe the reason(s) for proposing the topic(s).
If you have more than one topic proposal, please submit these as separate topics.
Please contact office(at)esgar.org to submit your proposal.
Published Guidelines
ECCO-ESGAR Consensus on Imaging techniques for assessment of IBD (February 2013)
The guidelines were published in the JCC (Journal of Crohn’s & Colitis).
The 2nd ESGAR Consensus Statement on CT Colonography (May 2012)
The guideline was published in European Radiology.