Cardiac surgeons and cardiologists with keen interest in scientific transparency have gathered  in a group called INTEGRITTY. LACES strongly supports the aim of INTEGRITTY and actively participates in the academic activities developed by this group.

 

INTEGRITTY (INTernational Evidence Grading Research Initiative towards Transparency and data qualiTY) is a multidisciplinary group of academic professionals brought together by a common objective: critical appraisal of evidence to support  better and optimized patient management. The field of cardiovascular medicine has witnessed increasing confrontations between groups with duality of interests, such as intellectual, political or financial. This has reached an unacceptable level, and major randomized controlled trials and guidelines from prestigious societies are questioned in their credibility. Although controversy is a way to reach consensus, this has not always been the case during recent years. The gap between evidence and guideline recommendations is getting wider. Prestigious members and key opinion leaders from surgical and cardiological societies worldwide who identify an urgent need to publicly express inconsistencies in current clinical recommendations and clinical trials have united to provide a common independent voice as free from conflicts of interest as possible.

The vision of INTEGRITTY is to promote and provide unbiased, critical and unconflicted evidence in cardiovascular medicine in order to aid healthcare professionals to make the best choice with patients, in compliance with the mission of academic institutions and scientific societies of pursuing consistency of knowledge and evidence-based decision-making.  Our scope is to appraise and evaluate evidence through a multidisciplinary team of experts, and provide  an independent description and interpretation of it.

INTEGRITTY members are committed to this challenging scope in the field of cardiovascular medicine; they wish to recenter the debate over the essentials:  independent research, fair clinical decision making and in-depth evaluation of the published literature.

 

 

The members of INTEGRITTY are:

Arthur Albuquerque - School of Medicine, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Rui M. S. Almeida - Dean and Full Professor, University Center Assis Gurgacz Foundation, Cascavel-Pr, Brazil. President elect, The Latin American Association of Cardiac and Endovascular Surgery-LACES

Amedeo Anselmi - Associate Professor - Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Rennes University Hospital, France

Fabio Barilli - Staff, Department of Cardiac Surgery, S. Croce Hospital, Cuneo, Italy.  Visiting Scientist, Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston. Chair, Research and Methodology Task Force, the European Association of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery. Scientific Secretary, Italian Society for Cardiac Surgery

William Boden - Professor of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine. Lecturer in Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA

James Brophy -  Professor of Medicine, Dept. of Medicine, McGill Health University Center, Montreal, Canada

Victor Dayan – Prof. Adj. Cardiac Surgery, Centro Cardiovascular Universitario, Universidad de la Republica del Uruguay. President, The Latin American Association of Cardiac and Endovascular Surgery-LACES

Raffaele De Caterina - Full Professor of Cardiology and Director, University Cardiology Division University of Pisa Chief, Cardiovascular Division, Pisa University Hospital, Pisa Italy

Ovidio A. García - Villarreal. Mexican College of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery; Mexico City, México.

Walter Gomes - Head, Cardiovascular Surgery, Pirajussara Hospital, Federal University of Sao Paulo, Brasil. Past President, Brazilian Society of Cardiovascular Surgery.

Sanjay Kaul - Professor of Medicine, cedars-Sinai Medical Center,  Los Angeles, USA

John Mandrola - Baptist Health Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky, USA

Mateo Marin Cuartas - Cardiac surgery and critical care resident, University Department of Cardiac Surgery, Leipzig Heart Center, Leipzig, Germany

Milan Milojevic - Department of Cardiac Surgery and Cardiovascular Research, Dedinje Cardiovascular Institute, Belgrade, Serbia. Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, Netherlands. Chair, Clinical Pracitice Guidelines Task Force, the European Association of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery.

Francesco Musumeci - Chief, Department of Cardiac Surgery and Heart Transplantation, San Camillo Forlanini Hospital, Rome, Italy. Past President, Italian Society for Cardiac Surgery

Patrick O. Myers - Privat Docent, University of Geneva Medical School, Division of Cardiac Surgery, CHUV - Lausanne University Hospital, Lausanne, Switzerland, EACTS Secretary General elect.

Alessandro Parolari - Full Professor of Cardiac Surgery, University of Milano, Italy. Chief, Universitary Cardiac Surgery, Policlinico San Donato IRCCS. President designated, Italian Society for Cardiac Surgery.

Jorge Rodriguez-Roda Stuart -  Chief, Servicio de Cirugía Cardiovascular Hospital Universitario Ramón y Cajal, Madrid. Vice President, Sociedad Española de Cirugía  Cardiovascular y Endovascular

Rafael Sadaba - Department of Cardiac Surgery, Hospital Universitario de Navarra, Spain. EACTS Secretary General

Daniele Ronco - Chief Resident, Department of Universitary Cardiac Surgery, IRCCS Policlinico San Donato, Milan, Italy

Miguel Sousa Uva - Associate Professor at the Porto University Medical School. Staff Surgeon, Department of Cardiac Surgery-Hospital Santa Cruz, Carnaxide, Vice president  (President Elect) of the Portuguese Society of Cardiac Thoracic and Vascular Surgery. Past President of the European Association of Cardiothoracic Surgery

Jacques Tomasi - Division of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Pontchaillou University Hospital, Rennes, France

Jean-Philippe Verhoye -  Full Professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of Rennes, Rennes, France.  Head of Thoracic Cardiovascular Surgery, Rennes University Hospital, France. President of the French Society of Thoracic, Cardiac and Vascular Surgery (SFCTCV).