The ESCP 2019 multicentre, pan-European audit will focus on the management of patients with acute severe ulcerative colitis. The audit will be delivered by a collaboration between colorectal surgeons and gastroenterologists.
The objective of the audit will be to explore variabilities in the medical and surgical management of acute severe ulcerative colitis and to determine its apparent impact on patient-level outcomes. Secondarily, the parameters that predict which patients may benefit from medical salvage therapy and who are likely to need colectomy will be assessed.
The data obtained about areas of variability in provision or practice, and how this may impact upon outcomes, will allow international benchmarking to improve the standard of care provided to this patient group, as well as generating hypotheses and inform future randomised research.
We welcome participants from any centre in the world. Each site can have up to eight investigators, including consultants and trainees. In each team, at least one team member will need to be a member of the ESCP.
Registration for MASC has now closed
Update May 2019
- Site start-up window extended until 1 July 2019.
- Brexit and GDPR update.
The ESCP Management of Acute Severe Colitis (MASC) audit is progressing well. We currently have 690 registered clinicians participating in the project, in 130 hospitals across 35 countries.
We are aware that other clinicians have wanted to participate in the audit, but delays in obtaining site approvals or ethical clearances have sometimes not allowed this to be possible yet. It is clear that the Brexit situation has added challenges, particularly around data transfer regulations and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) status. Some countries or units have been uncomfortable with the uncertainty about the future legal relationship between the UK and the rest of the EU, given that the ESCP REDCap system is based in Birmingham, UK.
The ESCP team and the University of Birmingham have been working to try and overcome these challenging issues and there are two items for audit collaborators to be aware of:
- All participating sites will now need to sign a generic Data Sharing Agreement (DSA) which covers all eventualities and future-proofs the project and the team’s data within, regardless of what happens in the coming weeks/months/years(!) with Brexit. A copy of this agreement is available below, or contact our team on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for a copy.
- Given these difficulties, the MASC team has extended the opening window for the project, to allow more sites to still join. We have extended the start up window for another 2 months until 1 July 2019. Sites just need to be up and running for the audit by this date (i.e. screening for eligible patients for entry, but not necessarily having entered a patient, because they may not have one available all of the time). The data inclusion window at each site remains 6 months, so participating teams will need to collect data for a continuous period of at least 6 months from their starting date, whenever this is.
We would be delighted to hear directly from you or answer any questions you may have (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).
Yours faithfully,
Thomas Pinkney, Matteo Frasson and Rita Perry
On behalf of the ESCP Cohort Studies and Audits Committee
Downloads:
- Audit Summary v3 (PDF 328kb)
- Study Protocol v4 (PDF 760kb)
- Case Report Form v3 (PDF 787kb)
- REDCap User Guide v1 (PDF 895kb)
- Frequently Asked Questions v2 (PDF 432kb)
- MASC Data Sharing Agreement for centres in the EEA, excluding the UK (Word 781kb)
- MASC Data Sharing Agreement for centres in the UK (Word 759kb)
- MASC Data Sharing Agreement for centres outside the EEA (Word 759kb)
