Systematic literature review on Calcium Pyrophosphate Deposition (CPPD) nomenclature: condition elements and clinical states— A Gout, Hyperuricaemia and Crystal-Associated Disease Network (G-CAN) consensus project

Objectives The Gout, Hyperuricaemia and Crystal-Associated Disease Network (G-CAN) has developed a calcium pyrophosphate deposition (CPPD) nomenclature project. This systematic literature review constituted its first step and aimed to provide a state-of-the-art analysis of the medical literature of the last 20 years.Methods A systematic literature search was undertaken in the PubMed, Cochrane and Embase databases between 2000 and 2022, restricted to studies on humans and in the English language. Eight reviewers independently and manually extracted labels related to CPPD concepts, according to an a priori list generated by the authors: pathogenic conditions and pathogenic crystal labels, elementary imaging condition elements and asymptomatic and symptomatic condition states. For each concept, labels were analysed to determine their frequency.Results Among the 2375 articles identified, 886 articles were included, of which 394 (44.5%) were case reports and 169 (19.0%) were scoping reviews. Overall, the most common labels used to designate the pathogenic condition were ‘pseudogout’ in 365/783 (46.6%), ‘chondrocalcinosis’ in 207/783 (26.4%) and ‘calcium pyrophosphate deposition disease’ in 181/783 (23.1%) occurrences. The most common abbreviation was ‘CPPD’ in 312/390 (80.0%), but with different meanings. CPPD clinical phenotypes were often described as ‘pseudo-form’ labels.Conclusion Those results demonstrate the heterogeneity of labels used to describe CPPD condition concepts, with wide variation in condition labels in the medical literature. This work provides the rationale and basis to achieve agreement about CPPD technical nomenclature.