- Email: [email protected]
The Susy Safe Project
International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology (2006) 70, 1663—1664
www.elsevier.com/locate/ijporl
LETTER TO THE EDITOR The Susy Safe Project A web-based registry of foreign bodies injuries in children KEYWORDS Foreign bodies; Choking; Children injuries; Removal techniques
Sirs, The European Survey on Foreign Body Injuries (ESFBI) Study, carried out under the advice of the EUFOS Board, has been concluded and the main results have been extensively presented at a successful Symposium at the XVIII World Congress of International Federation of Oto-Rhino-Laryngological Societies in Rome in June 2005. This cooperative study, collecting data on 2103 cases in 19 countries in Europe, was a multi-center retrospective survey based on discharge records, in the main hospitals of the capitals of the participating countries. The outcome of the study was impressive, showing, among other things, the key importance of education in preventing chocking injuries. Indeed, 48.9% of the accidents resulted to occur under the supervision of adults, and 58.6% when the child is playing. It has also to be pointed out that, even for more serious injuries, like the ingestion of batteries, which are known to pose a great risk of fistulae and hemorrhages, the transmission of the case to the hospital was not following the necessary criteria of urgency, with a significant percentage of the cases referred to the hospital with delay. One of the natural consequences of the ESFBI was the decision to move toward a prospective data collection system on choking injuries to be spread around Europe. This project became a reality when the DGSANCO, Directorate-General for Health and Consumer Protection, took the decision to fund this initiative, which is now carried out by a
cooperative effort with the Italian Ministry of Industry. The project is scientifically leaded by the Department of Public Health and Microbiology at the University of Torino, with the cooperation of the Competition and Consumers Protection Service, Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, Cyprus, the Charite ¨tmedizin, Berlin, ´ Universita Germany, the Ministry of Trade and Industry of Finland, jointly with the Helsinki University Central Hospital and the Commission de la Se ´curite ´ des Consommateurs, France. The fundamental goals of the project are: - to provide the scientific community with updated and validated data; - to provide a risk-analysis profile for each of the products causing the injury; - to provide an evaluation of how socio-economic disparities among EU citizens may affect the likelihood of being injured by FB ingestion, with the aim of implementing specific educational activities on safe behavior and active parental guard with regards to the specific products causing the injury; - to involve, as appropriate, Consumer Associations and/or National Market Surveillance Authorities in data collection and proper education of consumers. The goal is to have a data collection system spread around, but not necessarily limited to, Europe, gathering details on foreign body injuries occurred in children aged 0—14 in the upper aerodigestive tract, on the circumstances of the injury, which were the clinical or surgical treatments administered to the child, and finally on the characteristics of the foreign body. Each ORL or Paediatric Center willing to share its data with the project is welcome to do so, registering at the project web site http://www.susysafe.org. This can be done by accessing the ‘‘Registration’’ section of the web site and filling in the required fields. When this section (i.e. ‘‘Registration’’) is accessed for the first time, a window will appear asking the user to accept and install a
0165-5876/$ — see front matter # 2006 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijporl.2006.05.013
1664 security certificate issued by the http://www.susysafe.org/ and the ‘‘Universita ` degli Studi di Torino’’. By installing this certificate, the connection between the computer and the central server is secured. Following the registration, the physician (or the center he/she represents) will receive via email a unique identifying code and a password. These are required in order to download and use the Susy Safe Case Report software and also to enforce reliability on data collected. In order to enforce reliability on data collected, each center receives a unique code identifying it. Data are transmitted anonymously to the central server, physically located by the Department of Statistics and Applied Mathematics ‘‘Diego de Castro’’. Aggregate statistics and risk analysis based on collected data will be available for the public discussion. Individual data property will remain to the participating centers. In addition a strict publication policy will be adopted, with all the scientific contributions and papers on the overall data being presented as ‘‘The Susy Safe Study Group’’, with all the cooperating researchers and institutions being listed in the contribution.
Letter to the editor All people working in the field of injury prevention know well the significant interests involving industry in the assessment of product safety, which have been well documented in various occasion and meetings, as in the last International Conference on Pediatric ORL in Athens, 2004. In this view, the fundamental rule we established in conducting the project was to avoid the interference of industry at any level. Looking forward to have your cooperation in reaching this important goal toward a complete and independent surveillance registry, let us thank the EUFOS board once again for their impressive sensitivity and understanding with regard to this important issue. Dario Gregori* Department of Public Health and Microbiology, University of Torino, Via Santena 5bis, 10126 Torino, Italy *Tel.: +39 011 6705813; fax: +39 011 2365813 E-mail address: [email protected] 17 May 2006
www.elsevier.com/locate/ijporl
LETTER TO THE EDITOR The Susy Safe Project A web-based registry of foreign bodies injuries in children KEYWORDS Foreign bodies; Choking; Children injuries; Removal techniques
Sirs, The European Survey on Foreign Body Injuries (ESFBI) Study, carried out under the advice of the EUFOS Board, has been concluded and the main results have been extensively presented at a successful Symposium at the XVIII World Congress of International Federation of Oto-Rhino-Laryngological Societies in Rome in June 2005. This cooperative study, collecting data on 2103 cases in 19 countries in Europe, was a multi-center retrospective survey based on discharge records, in the main hospitals of the capitals of the participating countries. The outcome of the study was impressive, showing, among other things, the key importance of education in preventing chocking injuries. Indeed, 48.9% of the accidents resulted to occur under the supervision of adults, and 58.6% when the child is playing. It has also to be pointed out that, even for more serious injuries, like the ingestion of batteries, which are known to pose a great risk of fistulae and hemorrhages, the transmission of the case to the hospital was not following the necessary criteria of urgency, with a significant percentage of the cases referred to the hospital with delay. One of the natural consequences of the ESFBI was the decision to move toward a prospective data collection system on choking injuries to be spread around Europe. This project became a reality when the DGSANCO, Directorate-General for Health and Consumer Protection, took the decision to fund this initiative, which is now carried out by a
cooperative effort with the Italian Ministry of Industry. The project is scientifically leaded by the Department of Public Health and Microbiology at the University of Torino, with the cooperation of the Competition and Consumers Protection Service, Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, Cyprus, the Charite ¨tmedizin, Berlin, ´ Universita Germany, the Ministry of Trade and Industry of Finland, jointly with the Helsinki University Central Hospital and the Commission de la Se ´curite ´ des Consommateurs, France. The fundamental goals of the project are: - to provide the scientific community with updated and validated data; - to provide a risk-analysis profile for each of the products causing the injury; - to provide an evaluation of how socio-economic disparities among EU citizens may affect the likelihood of being injured by FB ingestion, with the aim of implementing specific educational activities on safe behavior and active parental guard with regards to the specific products causing the injury; - to involve, as appropriate, Consumer Associations and/or National Market Surveillance Authorities in data collection and proper education of consumers. The goal is to have a data collection system spread around, but not necessarily limited to, Europe, gathering details on foreign body injuries occurred in children aged 0—14 in the upper aerodigestive tract, on the circumstances of the injury, which were the clinical or surgical treatments administered to the child, and finally on the characteristics of the foreign body. Each ORL or Paediatric Center willing to share its data with the project is welcome to do so, registering at the project web site http://www.susysafe.org. This can be done by accessing the ‘‘Registration’’ section of the web site and filling in the required fields. When this section (i.e. ‘‘Registration’’) is accessed for the first time, a window will appear asking the user to accept and install a
0165-5876/$ — see front matter # 2006 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijporl.2006.05.013
1664 security certificate issued by the http://www.susysafe.org/ and the ‘‘Universita ` degli Studi di Torino’’. By installing this certificate, the connection between the computer and the central server is secured. Following the registration, the physician (or the center he/she represents) will receive via email a unique identifying code and a password. These are required in order to download and use the Susy Safe Case Report software and also to enforce reliability on data collected. In order to enforce reliability on data collected, each center receives a unique code identifying it. Data are transmitted anonymously to the central server, physically located by the Department of Statistics and Applied Mathematics ‘‘Diego de Castro’’. Aggregate statistics and risk analysis based on collected data will be available for the public discussion. Individual data property will remain to the participating centers. In addition a strict publication policy will be adopted, with all the scientific contributions and papers on the overall data being presented as ‘‘The Susy Safe Study Group’’, with all the cooperating researchers and institutions being listed in the contribution.
Letter to the editor All people working in the field of injury prevention know well the significant interests involving industry in the assessment of product safety, which have been well documented in various occasion and meetings, as in the last International Conference on Pediatric ORL in Athens, 2004. In this view, the fundamental rule we established in conducting the project was to avoid the interference of industry at any level. Looking forward to have your cooperation in reaching this important goal toward a complete and independent surveillance registry, let us thank the EUFOS board once again for their impressive sensitivity and understanding with regard to this important issue. Dario Gregori* Department of Public Health and Microbiology, University of Torino, Via Santena 5bis, 10126 Torino, Italy *Tel.: +39 011 6705813; fax: +39 011 2365813 E-mail address: [email protected] 17 May 2006