S3011 SCANDINAVIAN ORTHOPEDIC REGISTERS. INTRODUCTION

Abstract

In Scandinavia registers of locomotor system disease and trauma were developed in the mid 1970’s. In Sweden since then there exists registers of hip and knee arthroplasties and some years later similar registers were developed in Norway, Finland and Denmark. In 1988 a register on the treatment and rehabilitation of hip fractures started in Sweden and also since 1993 a spine register has been in use. The arthroplasty registers contain parameters concerning age, sex, diagnosis and technical factors for the operation. The outcome parameter is survival of the prosthesis e.g. if it has been revised or not. The real need to perform a revision arthroplasty has been considered a sufficiently well defined parameter to register. The hip fracture registration contains also background parameters as well as rehabilitation outcome including functional outcome parameters above all walking capacity and place of living. Functional outcome and patient rated quality of life are also included in the spine register. The arthroplasty registers have been very useful to separate better from not so well performing models as well as showing the importance of good cementing technique, type of cement as well as the influence of age, sex and diagnosis in a more rapid and reliable way because of the large-scale magnitude of the study. The hip fracture register has shown the importance of optimised operation and rehabilitation, which saves considerable resources in this increasing group of elderly patients. The symposium will exemplify performance, spread and results of orthopedic registers, which is an efficient way to evaluate on a large-scale everyday orthopedic practise. This way of registration has attracted great interest and is now spreading internationally. For hip fractures a European project has started called SAHFE (Standardised Audit of Hip Fractures in Europe).