Abstract
The European Association of Urology (EAU) Guidelines were originally introduced to the urology community in 2000. The EAU convened panels of experts for every urology field they aimed to cover in the years to follow.
The current Urolithiasis Panel works in the era of randomized controlled trials (RCTs), systematic reviews (SRs), and meta-analyses (MA), identifying relevant literature via structured searches of Medline, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library databases. However, there are specific questions and controversies that cannot be answered based on the available RCTs, SRs, and MAs, either because of contradicting results or for the simple reason that the studies conducted were not of adequate quality, resulting in a lack of evidence.
In such cases, panel expertise is the key component in the recommendation grade (sometimes resulting in a higher grade [upgrading] of a recommendation provided in the guidelines). Using the current urolithiasis guideline as a reference, some topics concerning the diagnosis and treatment of urolithiasis are highlighted here as grey zones in urolithiasis.