[Epidemiological research on stroke in Spain. Population-based studies or use of estimates from the minimum basic data set?].

The present issue of Revista Española de Cardiología publishes an epidemiologic estimate of stroke incidence in Catalonia constructed from the Minimum Basic Data Set (MBDS), compulsory in all Spanish hospitals.1 The MBDS is a valuable resource for healthcare planning providing data on the volume and nature of hospital use. The interest of this article lies in whether or not the estimate constitutes an epidemiologic resource that is adequate enough to enable us to establish the frequency of stroke, bearing in mind the changes in healthcare attention for cerebrovascular disease in the last decade, and permit us to change criteria for research into the epidemiology of stroke.2 The epidemiology of stroke has been marked by methodological discrepancies. The question of whether geographical or racial differences exist in different populations and the repercussion of population-wide interventions into risk factors affecting incidence obliged researchers to make the epidemiologic data available easy to compare. In 1987, Malmgrem et al,3 who participated in the Oxford study, established what they called ideal criteria for the analysis of the epidemiology of stroke, which obliged interventionist population-based studies to guarantee complete selection as they considered data from hospital registries and the registry of deaths were insufficient and impeded the comparison of studies. In contrast, Marrugat et al1 moved in the opposite direction as they assumed the MBDS draws on such a wide catchment area that it guarantees adequate selection. Various questions should be borne in mind on comparing data reported by Marrugat et al1 with the literature. Firstly, Marrugat et al include all episodes of stroke as they do not establish whether patients who may Epidemiological Research on Stroke in Spain. Population-Based Studies or Use of Estimates From the Minimum Basic Data Set?