ArticleEuropean journal of epidemiology2015
Detection and investigation of temporal clusters of congenital anomaly in Europe: seven years of experience of the EUROCAT surveillance system.
Article in European journal of epidemiology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 32 citations in OpenAlex.
- The EUROmediCAT Network and Databases: A Resource for Pharmacovigilance in Pregnancy.Pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety · 2026Article
- Prenatal multidisciplinary counseling for fetal congenital anomalies: A narrative review.International journal of gynaecology and obstetrics: the official organ of the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics · 2025Review
- A multidisciplinary and structured investigation of three suspected clusters of transverse upper limb reduction defects in France.European journal of epidemiology · 2024Article
- Prenatal diagnosis of Sex determining region Y -box transcription factor 2 anophthalmia syndrome caused by germline mosaicism using next-generation sequencing: A case report.International journal of reproductive biomedicine · 2023Article
- Prevalence of congenital anomalies and related factors in live births in Zahedan, Southeast of Iran: A cross-sectional study.International journal of reproductive biomedicine · 2023Article
- The trend of marriage, childbearing, and divorce and its determinants of socio-economic factors on divorce in Yazd province 2016-2021: A cross-sectional study.International journal of reproductive biomedicine · 2023Article
- Article
- Why Does Child Mortality Decrease With Age? Modeling the Age-Associated Decrease in Mortality Rate Using WHO Metadata From 14 European Countries.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2020Article
- EUROCAT: an update on its functions and activities.Journal of community genetics · 2018Article
- Rare disease registries: potential applications towards impact on development of new drug treatments.Orphanet journal of rare diseases · 2018Article
- Modeling the Age-Associated Decrease in Mortality Rate for Congenital Anomalies of the Central Nervous System Using WHO Metadata From Nine European Countries.Frontiers in neurology · 2018Article
- Trends in congenital anomalies in Europe from 1980 to 2012.PloS one · 2018Article
- Using scan statistics for congenital anomalies surveillance: the EUROCAT methodology.European journal of epidemiology · 2015Article
- Some options in studying side effects of drugs taken during pregnancy.European journal of epidemiology · 2015Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Detection and investigation of congenital anomaly clusters is one part of surveillance to detect new or changing teratogenic exposures in the population. The EUROCAT (European Surveillance of Congenital Anomalies) cluster monitoring system and results are described here. Monitoring was conducted annually from 2007 to 2013 for 18 registries covering an annual birth population up to 0.5 million births. For each registry and 72 anomaly subgroups, the scan "moving window" technique was used to detect clusters in time occurring within the last 2 years based on estimated date of conception. Registries conducted preliminary investigations using a standardised protocol to determine whether there was cause for concern, and expert review was used at key points. 165 clusters were detected, a rate of 3.4% of all 4823 cluster tests performed over 7 years, more than expected by chance. Preliminary investigations of 126 new clusters confirmed that 35% were an unusual aggregation of cases, while 56% were explained by data quality or diagnostic issues, and 9% were not investigated. For confirmed clusters, the registries' course of action was continuing monitoring. Three confirmed clusters continued to grow in size for a limited period in subsequent monitoring. This system is best suited to early detection of exposures which are sudden, widespread and/or highly teratogenic, and was reassuring in demonstrating an absence of a sustained exposure of this type. Such proactive monitoring can be run efficiently without overwhelming the surveillance system with false positives, and serves an additional purpose of data quality control.
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