Canadian practice guidelines for surgical intra-abdominal infections

FINANCIAL SUPPORT: Financial assistance for the development of these guidelines was provided in the form of arm’s-length grants-in-aid from AstraZeneca Canada Inc, Bayer Canada Inc, Merck Frosst Canada Ltd and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals Canada Inc. Sponsors were not involved in any aspect of the guidelines development, the literature interpretation, the decision to publish or any other aspect of the guidelines. The funds were used for conference calls and for organization of and travel to meetings for the members of the Expert Author Group. None of the members of the author group received any financial or in-kind remuneration for their contribution to this work. POTENTIAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST DECLARED BY WORKING GROUP MEMBERS: AWC owns stock options from Inimex Pharmaceuticals Inc and Migenix Pharmaceuticals Inc, and has received paid consultancy, speaker fees and travel assistance from Merck Frosst Canada. He is also a panel member of the Practice Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Complicated Intra-abdominal infections in Adults and Children by the Surgical Infections Society and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. He is also a member of the Expert Advisory Board on Anti-infective Therapies of Health Canada, and a member of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research University-Industry Grants Peer Review Committee. ABN received speaker fees from Wyeth Pharmaceuticals Inc, and is also a panel member of the Practice Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Complicated Intra-abdominal infections in Adults and Children by the Surgical Infections Society and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. AWK received an unrestricted educational grant from Urodynamix Corp for an unrelated original research project investigating intra-abdominal pressure in weightlessness. KW received ongoing consultancy from Abbott, Pfizer, Roche and GlaxoSmithKline and speaker fees from Abbott, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and Bayer. In addition, he has received research grants from Optimer Pharmaceuticals Inc, and Theravance Pharmaceuticals Inc. GGZ received research grants from Astellas, Abbott, Bayer, Cangene, Merck Frosst, Janssen Ortho, Pfizer, TaiGen, Targanta and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals Inc. GAE, CGB, GH, and GKMH have no conflicts.