Introducing dAUTObase: a first step towards the global scale geoepidemiology of autoimmune syndromes and diseases.

Abstract

An autoimmune disorder occurs when the immune system mistakenly attacks and destroys its own healthy body tissues. The initiation of a geoepidemiological database, for recording autoimmune incidents with a focus to clinical manifestations, demographic parameters and geographic background is crucial to detect correlations. The dAUTObase collects an ever increasing number of publications-currently counting 435-on autoimmune diseases' frequencies in various populations and ethnic groups. The respective data have been hosted by a web application developed for the task. It uses three data visualization tools: the PivotViewer, the Disease Treemap and the Disease World Map, to assist the effective data querying. The dAUTObase 2.0 version (www.biodata.gr/dautobase) needs no registration for querying, but data entry and modification is reserved for registered users (curators-administrators). kpoulas@upatras.gr or tzimas@cti.gr.