Report on the Congenital Committee and Its Database to National Societies, September 2006

1.   The EACTS Congenital Database
There is an EACTS Congenital Database which is located and managed, in a strictly anonymous way, in Warsaw, Poland.

More than 30,000 patients (more than 35,000 procedures) have been included to date. 183 centres, from 55 countries, are currently registered. A procedure of validation and verification has been developed. More information is available at www.eactscongenitaldb.org

However, only 40 centres are really active and approximately only 20 % of the overall European activity of pediatric cardiac surgery is reported. There is, therefore, a need to increase the completeness of data reporting, in order to improve the validity of the database.

2.   The need for National Databases 
In one European country (United Kingdom), the participation of pediatric cardiac surgery centres to a national database is compulsory.

In most other European countries, there is a growing pressure to establish such databases. This pressure is coming from health authorities, parental associations, medias ...

I believe that it is essential that professionals, and particularly, professional associations such as national societies, are responsible for the management of such databases.

3.   Using the EACTS Congenital Database to provide National Databases
A system is being established in some European countries (Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Poland, Spain) :

  1- all pediatric centres report their data to the EACTS Congenital Database (each centre can then compare its activity with that of the other European centres)

  2- the EACTS Congenital Database provides national reports to the National Society. This national report remains anonymous (which may be relative in countries with few centres) and can be used by the national society as it pleases.

I believe that such cooperation should be established in all European countries under the control of the National Societies. The Presidents and Secretaries of all National Societies will be contacted in the near future.

Pascal Vouhe M.D.
Chairman of the EACTS Congenital Committee