European vascular registries: Vascunet and Eurovasc

摘要

Vascunet is a forum foi vascular registries, mainly European. It has until now been an informal forum for exchange of experiences between the existing vascular registries, and has served as inspiration for colleagues involved in the creation of new registries. Recently, Vascunet became a more formal and permanent body under the Vascular Society.The concept of vascular registries began in Europe in the mid-1980s. The purpose of a vascular registry is provision of data on everyday performance, providing the basis for promotion of advances in the treatment of vascular diseases, research, statistical purposes and surgical audit The strength of a vascular registry is that data reflect results and complications of everyday practice more realistically than a series published in the medical literature At the same time, this is the weakness of a registry that data collection and validity are less controlled and the case mix of patients often leads to difficulties in interpretation of data If used the right way and with proper caution to these aspects, registries have proven to be valuable sources of information over the last decade.