Spine Atlas

Building a global spine atlas: Pioneering collaborative data calls to advance spine care.

What is Spine Atlas Initiative (SAI)

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.

Who can be part of Spine Atlas?

All units performing spine treatments and all spine registries are invited to participate in the data calls and join the group authorship.

How to be part of Spine Atlas?

The next data call (2026) will be focussing on treatment strategies and variations in Degenerative Cervical Myelopathy (DCM). 

Each participating unit is expected to provide 7 mandatory parameters and 7 optional parameters in a structured manner for each patient treated during a four-month period between February and May 2026.  

The 2026 data call will be announced at the EUROSPINE Annual Meeting 2025 (22-24 October in Copenhagen) and subsequently all further details will be published here! Sign up to get informed.

Benefits for participants

  • Group authorship in all key publications
  • Being part of a large international network of spine experts and spine units, increasing visibility and which may lead to various research projects and collaborations
  • Benchmarking own data with the pooled data of all other hospitals and countries.
  • Understanding epidemiology and practice variation across countries

Access to international epidemiological data

Visualization of spine care services

Aims

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.

Sign up

Organisation

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

spineatlas@eurospine.org 

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

Spine Atlas

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.