The use of echocardiography in observational clinical trials: the EURECA-m registry.

Echocardiography is the most widely used non-invasive imaging technique due to its availability, low cost, transportability and lack of ionizing radiations. However, it suffers from the main limitation of being highly subjective and operator-dependent. Furthermore, specifically, population or disease-dependent issues exist which should be addressed when this technique is applied in multicenter studies. As to the population of patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) maintained on chronic dialysis, indexation of echocardiographic parameters and timing of echocardiography in relationship to dialysis represent a specific, main issue that needs to be carefully considered and standardized. Scientific societies recommend the set-up of core laboratories in order to reduce inter- and intra-observer variability when an echocardiographic parameter is considered as an end-point in clinical research. Several studies have shown the superiority of interpretation given by echocardiography core-lab reading. These advantages are counterbalanced by higher costs and complexity. The EURECA-m registry by the EURECA-m working group, an ERA-EDTA initiative, aimed at promoting the scientific collaboration among professionals in the field of cardiovascular and renal medicine. The registry involves several centers in Europe and one of its aims is to measure conventional echocardiographic parameters in ESRD patients on chronic dialysis. A central reading protocol has been set up for the registry in order to give robustness to the echo studies.