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Spine Atlas 2026 Data Call – DCM

International mapping of treatment strategies in Degenerative Cervical Myelopathy

The 2026 Spine Atlas data call focuses on visualising treatment strategies and practice variation in Degenerative Cervical Myelopathy, including surgical and non-surgical management.

Contributors provide structured case-level data collected during a defined four-month observation period.

Study Design

International cross-sectional data collection including adult patients (≥18 years) treated for Degenerative Cervical Myelopathy.

Observation Period

1 February – 31 May 2026
All eligible cases treated during this period should be recorded once.

Timeline

Spine Atlas Data Call Phases:

Phase 1 – Case Collection

1 February – 31 May 2026

Contributors record eligible cases.*

*Retrospective data collection allowed, subject to ethics approval.

Phase 2 – Data Submission

1 – 30 June 2026

Contributors upload their dataset and complete the contributor survey.

Registration remains open until 30 June 2026.

Who Can Participate?

Individual hospitals

Spine units

Individual treatment specialists / healthcare providers

National or regional registries

Spine Tango users

National societies

Data contributors should treat patients for DCM in principle; no minimum number of cases is required. 

Data Requirements

Each participating unit provides:

  • 9 mandatory parameters
  • 7 optional parameters
  • One structured entry per eligible patient

The dataset is designed to ensure comparability while keeping data collection low-burden.

Submission Options

Data may be submitted via Spine Tango, Excel data collection template, or registry export with variable mapping.

All data must be anonymised prior to submission.

Representativeness & Metadata

Data contributors complete a structured survey describing institutional case volume, national coverage, potential selection bias, and healthcare system context. These metadata allow contextual interpretation of results.

Contributor Recognition

Eligible contributors receive citable group authorship, acknowledgement in Spine Atlas outputs, and benchmarking summaries where applicable. Where more than two authors are proposed, names are distributed across publications to maintain manageable author lists.

Ethics & Compliance

The SAI protocol was reviewed by the Ethics Committee of Eastern Switzerland (BASEC AO_2024-00111).

Contributors are responsible for local regulatory compliance. Country-specific guidance, templates, and application examples are available in the Resources section.

Estimated Effort

Time commitment: approx. 15 minutes for the contributor survey plus 2–3 hours for 20–40 patients (less if data are routinely collected in a spine registry).

Join the Spine Atlas 2026 Data Call

Complete the form below to register your institution or registry for participation in the Spine Atlas 2026 DCM data call.

Fields marked with * are required.

 

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