Introduction

The ICRS Registry is expanding and gaining worldwide recognition as an unbiased, reputable, cost-free clinical registry.

Content

The ICRS Registry mission: Our mission is to create the best source of unbiased outcomes data for treatments of painful articular cartilage lesions in the world, which is paramount for improvement of existing and discovery of new cartilage repair strategies, ultimately beneficial for millions of patients around the world

The ICRS Registry is perfect for continued objective monitoring of all patients with a cartilage lesion or early osteoarthritis, whether or not the lesion is treated directly. The response of patients to cartilage damage and treatments can be variable, treatments can also be forefront of medical advances, many are expensive. It is vital that a patient’s progress is monitored. All registry users have direct access to their own data and can export their data at any time. Additionally, the ICRS registry pools together large numbers of anonymized patient results to better understand how patients progress after treatment, so that doctors around the world have the most accurate picture of which techniques are working best in which patients. This helps patients of the future with similar injuries or cartilage problems, and rapidly identifies treatments that are showing great benefit, those that may not be performing as well as hoped, and also what happens naturally if nothing is done.It is designed to follow patients with following any cartilage treatment, but can also include patients with ligament reconstruction/repair, osteotomy, injections, bracing or no treatment at all. It can absorb existing datasets, undertake long-term follow-up of clinical trial patients, and ongoing follow-up of all patients.

The Registry now live in 8 languages: English, Japanese, Polish, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and Greek. A further three are in progress: Chinese, Swedish, and German. We now have ICRS Registry users in 50 Countries, so it is truly global. The greatest number of patients registered are from the UK, USA, Canada, China, Italy, Poland, Spain, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Greece, Brazil, Mexico, Japan and India. The patients range in age from 16-89 years, with older patients more likely to receive injections than cartilage repair surgery. Cartilage surgery was performed on patient with an age range of 16-57 years. The mean BMI of patients in the Registry is 26, and 67% have never smoked tobacco. The age and BMI was similar for both male and female patients. An open approach was used for cartilage repair procedures in two thirds of cases, and an arthroscopic approach in one third. Ninety-three percent of surgical cases employed a tourniquet, and prophylactic antibiotics were given to half of all patients undergoing surgical procedures. One third of patients undergoing cartilage surgery also underwent another concomitant surgical procedure eg: ligament reconstruction, realignment surgery, meniscal surgery etc

The number of patient pathways entered is rising exponentially. Nine percent of the data comes from existing datasets that have been absorbed, and 81% are new entries.

The first Annual Report is published before the ICRS Congress, and I look forward to updating the delegates on the progress of the Registry.

References

www.cartilage.org