Births after assisted procedures have become widespread throughout the world. The short term endpoints have been studied extensively, while studies on long terms endpoints, such as cancer, are limited. Since these endpoints are rare events in young persons, it is very useful to pool comparable data from similar studies ongoing in various countries, in order to increase the power of the study. To this end Dr. Emanuela Taioli, MD, PhD, initiated the APIKIDS Project in 2003.

Through the ever expanding collaboration of international investigators the APIKIDS Project has the potential to make a major impact on the field of children's health. 

 

THE APIKIDS PROJECT AIMS:

- To conduct a pooled analysis of all the existing studies on short and long term outcomes in children born after assisted  
   procedures.

- To share comparable data on children health, overcoming the limited power of individual studies, and foster collaboration  
  among scientists working in the field.


STUDY DESIGN:

Data contributed from participants are included in the database according to the following process. Each collaborating investigator is asked to provide original data from published and unpublished studies (without personal identifiers) on subjects included in his or her study. Once received, data are entered into a main data set. Quality and logical controls are performed, and investigators are asked for explanations when necessary. Finally, a hard copy of th entered data are sent back to the investigator for confirmation and completion as an additional quality control step.

Collected data are available to all participants. Authors of publications include all of the investigators whose data were used, and any others who participated in data analysis/paper writing.

A similar experience in the field of metabolic gene polymorphisms and cancer is ongoing, and details can be found at the website www.gsec.net.