Spine surgery database: a Turkish registry for spinal disorders.
OBJECTIVE
This study presents a Turkish academic database application platform which is specialized for spinal surgery clinics. The application provides a userfriendly interface and easy access to the patients' data due to a hierarchical structure. Patient diagnosis, treatment and follow-up process data are recorded regularly and systematically. Another ambitious goal is to register the treatment outcomes to also provide an environment for analyzing patients' data.


METHODS
The Spine Surgery Database (SSD) application was designed as incorporating all content that can be used in the field of spine surgery expertise. The system has different tools for different purposes; main application, database creation, analysis and data merge tool. Widely accepted standards, Oswestry Disability Index, Prolo Scale, SF-36, etc., are used to assess outcome analysis.


RESULTS
Diagnosis, treatment and follow-up processes were monitored in a standard structure. Distributions of general patient profile over pathological and anatomical information are represented using the SSD analysis tool. Over 22.000 patients' medical data were successfully recorded and the patient registration problem was resolved by using software applications.


CONCLUSIONS
This specialized application presents a user-friendly interface which supplies all needs of spinal surgery. Questionnaires and scales which are very important for clinicians and researchers can be generated through the SSD tool.
Utku
Semih
S
Dokuz Eylul University, Computer Engineering, Buca, Izmir, Turkey. semih@cs.deu.edu.tr
Baysal
Hulusi
H
Zileli
Mehmet
M
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D016208:Databases, Factual; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D012042:Registries; D012984:Software; D013122:Spinal Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000601:surgery*; D013131:Spine / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000601:surgery; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014421:Turkey; D014584:User-Computer Interface; D055815:Young Adult