CRDC: a Chinese rheumatology research platform

This review introduces the history of development, organizational structure, funding resources, data collection, and quality control of the Chinese Rheumatism Data Center (CRDC) and summarizes the collection of data. In 2009, Peking Union Medical College Hospital (PUMCH), together with several rheumatism centers, established the Chinese Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) Treatment and Research Group (CSTAR) to collect data on Chinese patients for the study of SLE disease characteristics. In 2011, CSTAR was extended with the formation of the CRDC at PUMCH with direction from the National Health and Family Planning Commission of the PRC. The CRDC currently includes 300 registration sites and 50 regional sites that have successively begun to collect data on 12 rheumatic diseases, including systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), ankylosing spondylitis (AS), systemic sclerosis, dermatomyositis, Takayasu arteritis, IgG4-related diseases, ANCA-associated vasculitis, gout, polyarteritis nodosa, unclassified systemic vasculitis, and Behcet disease. To date, 17,224 patients have been enrolled in the CRDC. Based on the SLE patients registered in the CRDC, papers investigating basic demographic characteristics and first symptom in Chinese SLE patients, risk factors of pulmonary hypertension, correlations between autoantibodies and clinical manifestations, and factors related to fetal loss have been published. The CRDC is a national registry that provides real-life data to improve clinical decision-making. At the same time, without additional work for the clinician, the CRDC is a powerful research database. The CRDC database provides sufficient information for Chinese clinical studies on rheumatology. Moreover, a mobile device application ensures convenient and efficient data collection without compromising data quality, thereby providing strong evidence-based data for the diagnosis and treatment of Chinese rheumatic patients.