Prediction of Outcome after Traumatic Brain Injury: Comparison of Disease State Index and IMPACT Calculator

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major cause of death and disability, especially in young adults. A reliable prediction of outcome after TBI is of great importance in clinical practice and research. We aimed to compare performance of the well-established IMPACT calculator and an alternative method, Disease State Index (DSI), in the prediction of six-month outcome after TBI. Performance of the models was evaluated using 2036 patients with moderate or severe TBI from the International Mission for Prognosis and Analysis of Clinical Trials in TBI (IMPACT) database. Prediction performance of both models was similar. The models with more variables provided better performance than the simpler models. This study showed that the DSI is a valid tool with efficient visualizations that can help clinicians with their decision making process in clinical practice.