Comparison of APACHE II and three abbreviated APACHE II scores for predicting outcome among emergency trauma patients.

OBJECTIVE to compare the ability of the APACHE II score and three different abbreviated APACHE II scores: simplified APACHE II (s-APACHE II), Rapid Acute Physiology score (RAPS) and Rapid Emergency Medicine score to evaluate in-hospital mortality of trauma patients at the emergency department (ED). METHODS retrospective analysis of a prospective cohort study. All patients' victims of trauma admitted to the ED, during a 5 months period. For all entries to the ED, APACHE II score was calculated. APACHE II system was abbreviated by excluding the laboratory data to calculate s-APACHE II score for each patient. Individual data were reanalyzed to calculate RAPS and REMS. APACHE II score and its subcomponents were collected, and in-hospital mortality was assessed. The area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUROC) curve was used to determine the predictive value of each score. RESULTS 163 patients were analyzed. In-hospital mortality rate was 10.4%. s-APACHE II, RAPS and REMS scores were correlated with APACHE II score (r2= 0.96, r2= 0.82, r2= 0.92; p < 0.0001). Scores had similar accuracy in predicting mortality ([AUROC 0.777 [95% CI 0.705 to 0.838] for APACHE II, AUROC 0.788 [95% CI 0.717 to 0.848] for s-APACHE II, AUROC 0.806 [95% CI 0.737 to 0.864] for RAPS, AUROC 0.761 [95% CI 0.688 to 0.824] for REMS. CONCLUSION abbreviated APACHE II scores have similar ability to evaluate in-hospital mortality of emergency trauma patients in comparison to APACHE II score.