European liver transplant registry: A 30-year model of international scientific collaboration

4^th Global Surgery and Transplantation Congress

October 03-04, 2016 Atlanta, USA

Vincent Hassan Karam

Paul Brousse Hospital, France

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Transplant Technol Res

Abstract :

The European Liver Transplant Registry (ELTR) is a voluntary collaboration of 161centers in 31 European countries established in 1985. For ELTR, a pre-specified set of variables is collected from every liver transplant (LT) patient at the point of transplantation. Moreover, follow up data are updated by contributing centers at each visit so that re-transplantations as well as deaths can be recorded. The ELTR has established partnerships to exchange data with key European Organ Sharing Organizations (NHS Blood and Transplant- UK, Organizaci�³n Nacional de Transplantes- Spain, Agence de la Biomedicine- France, Stichting Nederlandse Transplantatie- Netherlands) and European Organ Exchange Organizations (Scandiatransplant and Eurotransplant Foundation). Coverage of LT in Europe within ELTR has been shown to be as high as 97% in 2013; data obtained from the ELTR database can thus be described as highly representative of Europe. Data are collected prospectively by an EDC standardized questionnaire, which is regularly updated by a scientific committee, and subject to strict internal and external quality control to ensure the accuracy and consistency of the information. Annual audits of randomly selected centers are continuously performed, which have confirmed that data from the ELTR are a reliable and credible representation of LT practice in Europe. As such, data from the ELTR has also formed the foundation for the development of risk models for LT outcomes. The ELTR has currently worked on implementing a platform by combining traditional data management and analytics roles to effectively evaluate LT data in real-time by utilizing the appropriate data IT solutions.