EUREQUO INNOVATIONS

Further improvements are being planned for the EUREQUO database to make it more user-friendly for the doctors inputting their results into the system.

“The discussion is still ongoing,” Mats Lundstrom, clinical director of EUREQUO, told EuroTimes. “At the end of the discussion I am hopeful that the database will be even more attractive,” said Prof Lundstrom.

After the present review the database should be more flexible, said Prof Lundstrom. This means that a surgeon/clinic signing up for participation is not forced to stick to the same follow-up for all cataract patients.

“If there is follow-up data to be entered in the registry we need to know the date of surgery and the date of follow up,” he said.

Prof Lundstrom explained that in the existing system for cataract surgery there is one form for short-term follow-up (one to six days) and another form for long-term follow-up (seven to 60 days).

“In the new system we will have one form for all follow-up records irrespective of the follow-up time. For example, central corneal oedema the day after surgery may be transient but corneal oedema two months after surgery is persistent. It is therefore the follow-up time that decides what kind of corneal oedema we are dealing with. The same goes for elevated IOP, uveitis etc. When we take out a report for statistics we have to group the follow-up time in a way that is meaningful to understand what kind of complication we have,” he said.

New variables

It is also planned, said Prof Lundstrom, to include new variables. “We have been testing variables for femtosecond laser-assisted cataract surgery in more than 3,000 surgeries by now. These variables will be included. Other variables that could be discussed are CME as a complication after cataract surgery, types of IOL in RLE surgery, the inclusion of new types of refractive surgery (for example SMILE) and the inclusion of Mitomycin C in corneal refractive surgery,” said Prof Lundstrom.

The presentation of the statistics in the existing report system can also be improved, he said, and they are also looking at ways of giving surgeons better access to reports.

“This is a very exciting project for EUREQUO,” said Prof Lundstrom, “and if EuroTimes readers who are using the database have any suggestions to the changes that they would like to see in the database, I can be contacted at the email address at the end of this article.”

Mats Lundstrom:
mats.lundstrom@karlskrona.mail.telia.com