Building a global spine atlas: Pioneering collaborative data calls to advance spine care.
Inspired by international cancer registration, Spine Atlas is an international epidemiological initiative to visualise spine services and practice variations in spinal care across geographical boundaries.
All units performing spine treatments and all spine registries are invited to participate in the data calls and join the group authorship.
The first data call 2025 is focusing on degenerative lumbar spondylolisthesis.
Each participating unit is expected to provide eight mandatory parameters (patient age, sex, date of surgery, spinal stenosis, grade of spondylolisthesis and performed treatment) and some optional parameters in a structured manner for each patient treated during a three-month period between February and April 2025.
The next call is in fall 2025! Sign up to get informed.
Access to international epidemiological data
Visualization of spine care services
We discriminate between three following type of participants:
The protocol of the Spine Atlas Initiative (SAI) has been assessed by the Ethics Committee of Ostschweiz Switzerland (EKOS), BASEC submission no. AO_2024-00111.
EKOS confirmed that there are no ethical objections as long as the data are anonymised and patient consent is obtained as described in the SAI protocol. Within the field of human research, the project does not require prior/further approval from the ethics committee. Data protection must be ensured.
Local regulations for the data collection and usage might require an ethics vote from your local ethics committee. For application templates and resources see below. Please remember to share these votes with us. The SAI team so far received positive votes from Switzerland, Japan and Austria.
In most cases the application above for only the data collection and submission is sufficient, where the full protocol is simply attached. If needed, here is the full application template.
The Spine Atlas Initiative aims to visualise epidemiology on spine treatments periodically by and across countries, providing a comprehensive view of the global landscape.
I want to be updated on this initiative.
The Initiative is coordinated and funded by EUROSPINE and will be steered by a Steering Committee with Christian Herrmann leading the project as Principal Investigator (PI).
Christian Herrmann, PhD MSc
Principal Investigator Spine Atlas Initiative, Epidemiology
EUROSPINE, The Spine Society of Europe
Sabrina Donzelli, MD MSc
Clinical research
Chair Spine Tango Committee
Research Director National Scoliosis Center, Fairfax, Virginia, US
President of the International Society on Scoliosis Orthopaedic and Rehabilitation
Emin Aghayev, MD MSc
Medical registries
Senior Advisor Spine Tango
Head Research Development at Lindenhofgruppe
Pierre Côté, MS
Epidemiology
Professor Ontario Tech University Research Excellence
Director, Institute for Disability and Rehabilitation Research, Ontario, Canada
Florian Ringel, PhD MD
Neurosurgery, Representative from the European Association of Neurosurgical Societies (EANS)
Director of the Department of Neurosurgery, University Medical Center Mainz
Chairman of the EANS Spine Section, President elect of the German Spine Society
Jarkko Halme, MD
Orthopaedic surgery, International Spine Registries Group Representative
Finnish Spine Registry
President European Spine Society Advisory Board (EuSSAB)
Sashin Ahuja, MD MSc
Orthopaedic surgery, International Spine Registries Group Representative
British Spine Registry
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.
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