Updated EUROCAT guidelines for classification of cases with congenital anomalies.

Within the European Platform on Rare Diseases Registration, the JRC is operating the Central Registry of EUROCAT, a European network for surveillance of congenital anomalies. The network performs epidemiological surveillance of congenital anomalies to facilitate the identification of teratogenic exposures and to assess the impact of primary prevention and prenatal screening policies. The results of surveillance, including prevalence, prenatal detection rates and the evaluation of clusters and pan-European trends in major congenital anomalies across Europe, are publicly available on the EUROCAT website. Precise and correct classification of congenital anomalies is important in epidemiological studies, not only to classify according to etiology, but also to group similar congenital anomalies together to create homogeneous subgroups for surveillance and research. The EUROCAT subgroups were defined grouping anomalies together because of shared etiological mechanisms or clinical characteristics. The EUROCAT multiple congenital anomaly (MCA) algorithm identifies cases with potential MCA, which is important for surveillance of new teratogenic exposures. Both are based on International Classification of Diseases (ICD10/ICD9) codes. They provide a standardized and clear methodology for congenital anomaly research that we hope will be adopted by other researchers in an international context.

BERGMAN Jorieke E.H.;  PERRAUD Annie;  BARISIC Ingeborg;  KINSNER-OVASKAINEN Agnieszka;  MORRIS Joan;  TUCKER David;  WELLESLEY Diana;  GARNE Ester; 

2024-04-18

WILEY

JRC134429

2472-1727 (online),   

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bdr2.2314,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC134429,   

10.1002/bdr2.2314 (online),