Evaluation and Comparison of Different Prehospital Triage Scores of Trauma Patients on In-Hospital Mortality

Abstract

Introduction: Several prehospital major trauma patient triage scores have been developed, the triage revised trauma score (T-RTS), Vittel criteria, Mechanism/Glasgow Coma Scale/Age/Systolic blood pressure score (MGAP), and the new trauma score (NTS). These scoring schemes allow a rapid and accurate prognostic assessment of the severity of potential lesions. The aim of our study was to compare these scores with in-hospital mortality predictions in a cohort of consecutive trauma patients admitted in a Level 1 trauma center. Materials: Between 2013 and 2016, 1,112 patients were admitted to the "major trauma" spinneret of a Level 1 trauma center in the south of France. All prehospital data needed to calculate the T-RTS, Vittel criteria, the MGAP score, and the NTS were collected. The main evaluation criterion was in-hospital mortality at 30 days for all causes. The predictive performances of these scores were evaluated and compared with each other using the analysis of the receiver operating curves. Results: A total of 1,001 patients were included in the analysis, 238 (24%) females, aged 43 ± 19 years with ISS 15 ± 13. The area under the curve was for each score: T-RTS, AUC = 0.84, [0.82–0.87]; Vittel criteria, AUC = 0.87 [0.85–0.89]; MGAP score, AUC = 0.91 [0.89–0.92] and NTS, AUC = 0.90 [0.88–0.92]. By comparing the ROC curves of these scores, the MGAP and NTS scores were statistically higher than the T-RTS. With the current thresholds, the sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values of these scores were 91%, 35%, 10%, 98% for T-RTS, 100%, 2%, 8%, 100% for Vittel criteria, 91%, 71%, 24%, 99% for MGAP score, 82%, 86%, 33%, 98% for NTS. Only Vittel's criteria allowed undertriage below 5% as recommended by the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma (ACSCOT). Conclusion: The comparison of these different triage scores concluded with a superiority of the MGAP and NTS scores compared with the T-RTS. Including the calculation of MGAP or NTS scores with the Vittel criteria would reduce the risk of overtriage in the Level 1 trauma centers by further directing patients at low risk of death to a lower-level trauma facility.

Key words:

• trauma scores
• mortality
• prehospital care
• overtriage
• MGAP