APACHE II or INCNS to predict mortality in traumatic brain injury: A retrospective cohort study

BACKGROUND: Some scoring systems, such as Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE II), are used to predict mortality, but they are not specialized for traumatic brain injury. INCNS is a new scoring system for traumatic brain injury developed by Goa et al. INCNS score evaluates inflammation, nutrition, consciousness, neurological function and systemic condition. The present study aims to evaluate performances of Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE II) and INCNS to predict mortality in traumatic brain injuries. METHODS: In this study, 78 patients who were treated in anaesthesiology intensive care unit with the diagnosis of traumatic brain injury were included. Patients under the age of 18, foreigners, patients with incomplete data were excluded from this study. Medical records were examined retrospectively. APACHE II and INCNS scores in the first 24 hours were counted up. RESULTS: Of the 78 patients, 45 (57.7%) were males and 33 (42.3%) were females. The overall mortality was 34.6% (27/78). The mean APACHE II, INCNS score was 23.85 +/- 9.44 and 14.43 +/- 8.75, respectively. The area under the curve result of receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was 0.797 for the APACHE II and 0.847 for the INCNS. CONCLUSION: The INCNS scoring system had higher discriminatory power than the APACHE II in predicting the mortality of TBI in the ICU. INCNS can be considered as a usable prognostic model for Turkish people.