IGEH/INRO NEWSLETTER

SPRING 2004

May 2004

To: All Supporters, Friends and Colleagues

Dear all,

I am pleased to write the Newsletter from IGEH/INRO for the first time to introduce myself to all of you and to keep you informed about IGEH’ ongoing projects, new projects and future plans of our organization.

Ongoing Projects

ITCP Database

We proceed with the first complex analysis of data extracted from the ITCP Database. At the moment our team is mainly focusing on four areas of study, each one of them coordinated by one or two researchers: Epidemiology of TBI (Dr. Alexandra Brazinova), Trauma Systems (Dr. Lucia Lenartova, Dr. Johannes Leitgeb), ICP monitoring (Dr. Petra Dado) and CT Scans (Dr. Johannes Leitgreb). The total number of cases in the database increased up to 775 (!!!), 347 of them provided by the Austrian centers, 400 by our Balkan centers and the others by our centers in neighboring countries. We expect this number to continue rising, also thanks to the contribution of new centers which are going to join the 15 Hospitals already included in this project. These new centers, where ITCP has recently been installed, are the Trauma Hospital of Brno (Czech Republic), and the University Hospitals of Trieste (Italy).

IGEH Italian Project

Here comes the moment to introduce myself to the collaborators and friends of IGEH whom I didn’t have the opportunity to meet yet. My name is Annalisa Rosso, and I am an Italian Medical Doctor graduated at the Faculty of Medicine of the University “La Sapienza” of Rome in July 2002. Thanks to a grant for “Post-Graduate Training in a Foreign Country” awarded by my University, I work at the IGEH/INRO since the 1st of March 2004 as a Research Fellow, to gain some experiences in the areas of Public Health and International Health Projects. I am currently coordinating the IGEH/INRO Italian Project, which will basically consist in recruiting some Italian centers to be included into our international network. Their data on severe TBI patients will be entered into ITCP database and processed to perform national- and international analysis. During the first two weeks of April I had visited the Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive care of the University Hospital “Cattinara” of Trieste, where I met the Director of the Department, Prof. Antonino Gullo, and his colleague Prof. Giorgio Berlot, responsible for the Emergency Service of the Italian Region Friuli- Venezia Giulia. After introducing our Organization and the Italian Project to them, we discussed some aspects of the Project together and they agreed to start collaborating with IGEH and to include their center in our network. ITCP was installed in their Department, and I provided a demonstration of its use, entering “virtual patients” in the database. I also met Prof. Maurizio Iacoangeli, old friend of our Organization, who is currently working at the Division of Neurosurgery of the University Hospital of Ancona, together with our other friend Prof. Massimo Scerrati. They both confirmed their strong interest in collaborating with IGEH, and I gave them a copy of the latest version of ITCP to be installed in the Department, with instructions for the use and the installation of the database. Prof. Iacoangeli also suggested other centers in Italy who are likely to be interested in entering our network, which I will be contacting within the next days (Policlinico Gemelli of Rome, Pediatric Hospital “Bambin Gesù” of Rome, Policlinico Umberto I of Rome, University Hospital of Pavia, University Hospital of Messina, Hospital of Cesena).

Training Seminar

On March the 16th IGEH/INRO organized a Workshop on ICP Monitoring for 7 Medical Doctors coming from different hospitals in Slovakia and Czech Republic. After a theoretical explanation on ICP monitoring procedures, held by Prof. Walter Mauritz, Dr. Petra Dado provided practical demonstration, followed by hands-on training of guest doctors on models. The doctors who participated to the Training were: Drs. Martin Dolecek and Jan Vrabec (Trauma Hospital, Brno, Czech Republic), Dr. Milan Kaniansky (Trauma Department, Banska Bystrica, Slovakia), Drs. Ladislav Becker, Miriam Bartosova and Peter Rovder (Michalovce Hospital, Slovakia) and Dr. Vladimir Cernak (Bratislava – Ruzinov, Slovakia). The Slovak Health Care Weekly has documented the seminar.

New Projects

The following new Projects will be activated by our organization.

• Injury Prevention: IGEH/INRO collaborates with the Austrian institution for safety “Sicher Leben” on the realization of the Project “European Injury Prevention Network”, part of the EU Public Health Program for 2003-2008. The project will be the continuation of the “Injury Prevention Program” started in 1999, consisting in the collection of data about injuries and accidents in the Member States of the EU, and in the study of the risk factors. This new part of the project will mainly focus on the development of health information and knowledge systems, and on the tackling of the health determinants for injury.
• Strategic Workshop: as a part of Satellite Conferences of the “7th World Conference on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion” (June 6th- 9th,Vienna), IGEH organized the workshop "Scientific Evidence Based Approach to the Management of Patients with Severe Traumatic Brain Injury" , which will take place on the 5th of June 2004 at our office. A grant awarded by the EU INTAS Program allowed us to invite 7 Medical Doctors coming from Russia, Georgia and Armenia for participating to our Workshop and to the International Conference.
• Russia and NIS Project: A Project Proposal was presented from our Organization within the EU 6Th Frame Program, after the Call for “Specific Targeted Research Projects (STREPs) and Coordination Actions (CAs) for Russia and the other NIS”. The main objectives of this Project, titled “Assessment of Trauma Epidemics and its Burden on Societies in Russia and NIS”, will be the establishment of the trauma epidemics impacts on the Russian and NIS (Russian Federation, Georgia and Armenia) societies, and the formulation of consequent implications for national trauma management policies. IGEH/INRO will work together with partners from UK - The Trauma Audit and Research Network (TARN): www.tarn.ac.uk, from Germany Biochemical and Experimental Division of the IInd Dept. of Surgery at the University of Cologne and Department of Traumatology at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic.

Plans for the nearest future

Conferences: IGEH/INRO researchers will participate to the following conferences which will take place in Europe in the next two months to present our work:

• 6th European Trauma Congress, Prague May 16th- 19th
• 13th International Conference on Safe Communities, Prague June 2nd- 4th
• 5th Congress of the Slovak Epidemiology Association, Banska Bystrica June 2nd- 4th
• 7th World Conference on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion, Vienna June 6th- 10th
• Third Int. Conference on Healthcare Systems, Charleston, West Virginia, October 14-17

EU Balkan Project meeting in Rijeka: a Meeting of all the centers included in the ITCP study will take place in Rijeka (Croatia) on the 18th of June 2004. Further informations will be soon given to the participating centers.

Website: the Italian version of the IGEH/INRO website, which I realized during the last summer, will be soon available on line.

With the best regards,

Annalisa Rosso, M.D.