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The Emerging Global Cardiothoracic Surgical Community: Need for Increasing Communication and Cooperation

Department of Cardiac Surgery Saint Vincent Hospital 25 Winthrop Street Worcester,MA 01604-4593 USA

At the recent meeting of the European Association for Cardio-thoracic Surgery (EACTS) in Glasgow, Scotland, over 80 countries were represented. The recent Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) international database includes over 10,000 surgeons worldwide. It is roughly estimated that between 1.2 and 1.4 million open heart operations are performed worldwide by approximately 8000 cardiac surgeons in more than 2500 centers. Despite the decreasing rate of growth in North America and Europe, there continues to be expansion of programs and procedures, especially in Asia where emerging economies have extended financial support to the healthcare sector. In order to properly gather, analyze, and collate the growth and expansion of cardiac surgery worldwide, an international registry is needed. The STS database and the European Cardiac Surgical Registry (ECSUR) are the models upon which to build.

The STS database is voluntary with over 700 US centers submitting their annual data for documentation and comparison.¹ The ECSUR, started 3 years ago and funded by the European Commission under the auspices of EACTS, has data from more than 780 cardiac centers in Europe.² The ECSUR has recently expanded to Asia and Australia. The ultimate goal is to gather an international database. To quote Richard Wyse,²"It is only when these core international data sets are published and adopted by many centers and national registries that the real value of this cohesive international approach for data collection will become apparent." To accomplish the goal of an international database including the more than 2500 centers worldwide, cooperation and funding is necessary. The STS and EACTS should continue to work together and share resources. Corporation support is needed since they too will ultimately benefit from the global increase in cardiac surgical procedures. Individual contributions both in time and energy cannot be over emphasized.

Clearly, as the world becomes smaller through com-munication and access to travel, cardiac surgery will benefit as information and contacts increase. I urge our colleagues to communicate with each other and with their appropriate societies, associations, and corporate contacts to support this global effort to develop a comprehensive international database.

References

1. Clark RE. The STS cardiac surgery national database: an update. Ann Thorac Surg 1995;59:1376–81.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

2. Wyse RK, Taylor KM. The development of an international surgical registry: the ECSUR project. The European Cardiac Surgical Registry. Eur J Cardio-thorac Surg 1999;16:2–8.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

This Article Extract Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Personal Folders Download to citation manager Author home page(s): A Thomas Pezzella Permission Requests Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Pezzella, A T. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Pezzella, A T.