In 1994 the German Society of Interventional Radiology (DeGIR) introduced a voluntary quality mangement program. Out of a total of 82 881 of the year 2011, 36 467 patients, who received interventional recanalisation of pelvic or lower extremity arteries were chosen for an in depth analysis. In 33 104 (90.8 %) cases indication for interventional treatment was determined by at least one further discipline or even a multidisciplinary conference. Most treated patients were classified as Fontaine II or higher. Technical success rate over all procedures and regions was 96.2 % showing a very low failure rate of only 3.8 %. The overall complication rate was 3.2 %, periinterventional morbidity (complication C, D or E according to SIR classification) was 1.37 % and periinterventional mortality was 0.07 % (24 cases). X-ray exposure was recorded as well showing an average fluoroscopy time of 12 minutes and a dose-area product of 5034 cG × cm2. The voluntary quality management system was well accepted by the interventional radiologists. The software allows to compare the individual data of a single institution with the pooled data of all 192 participating radiology departments.
© Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.