EMSCI-European Multicenter Study about Spinal Cord Injury 2017
Research type
Research Database
IRAS ID
216935
Contact name
Mariel Purcell
Contact email
Research summary
EMSCI database
REC name
West of Scotland REC 4
REC reference
17/WS/0092
Date of REC Opinion
20 Jun 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion
Data collection arrangements
Following consent,patients with acute traumatic spinal cord injury are tested and documented within a fixed time schedule (acute, 4, 12, 24 and 48 weeks) after spinal cord injury.The examinations consist of a standard set of neurological and functional assessments. The collected data from each centre is sent to the coordinating centre (Zurich) at regular time intervals to be joined into a central database (EMSCI).
A paper record of each patients dataset will be kept in the patients own centre under lock and key until the full anonymised dataset for that patient has been entered into the EMSCI database. The paper record will then be destroyedCompleted anonymous datasets will be entered into the EMSCI database by the study doctor in each UK Centre. EMSCI is ISO 9001:2008-certified since August 2010. This successful certification was a result of the network efforts to continually improve the quality of its database
Research programme
The establishment of combined clinical, functional and neurophysiological measures for a qualitative and quantitative assessment of spinal cord function in patients with SCI at different stages during rehabilitation represents a basic requirement to monitor any significant effect of a new treatment. Therefore, several European spinal injuries centres involved in the rehabilitation of acute traumatic SCI patients build up a close collaboration for standardised assessment. The aim is to get knowledge about the natural recovery after spinal cord lesion in a larger population of patients in the sense of a historical control group and to bring standardised assessment tools to the clinical setting.Spinal cord injury is rare and it is difficult for one hospital to collect useful information on the natural course of the injury. By combining results from several centres and countries, clinicians and researchers have a much better understanding of the likely outcome of injury. The success of our network can be measured by the undoubtedly high number of scientific publications and their corresponding noteworthy impact factor. Scientific publications demonstrate the quality of an academic network and EMSCI currently has the largest publishing record of all SCI networks in the world. We will continously embed our network in the context of clinical interventions as a translational research tool.
Research database title
EMSCI database
Establishment organisation
Queen Elizabeth National Spinal Injuries Unit
Establishment organisation address
Queen Elizabeth University Hospital
Govan Road
Glasgow
G51 4TF