title: Pediatric risk of mortality (PRISM) score in meningococcal disease.
abstract: To assess the pediatric risk of mortality (PRISM) score as a prognostic scoring system in severe meningococcal disease, the files of 53 consecutive patients admitted to a tertiary pediatric intensive care with a clinical diagnosis of meningococcal disease and positive cultures from blood and/or cerebrospinal fluid were analysed. PRISM-score-based expected mortality was compared with observed mortality. Expected mortality in the whole study population was 29% while observed mortality was 19% (P<0.05). The highest expected and observed mortality was found in septicaemic patients without (documented) meningitis, while meningitis patients without septicaemia had the lowest mortality. All patients with a mortality risk below 18.3% (n = 29) survived whereas all those with a mortality risk of 65% or higher (n = 7) died. Of the 17 patients with a mortality risk between 18.3% and 63.9%, 14 survived and 3 died. The area under the receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve was 0.94, which is at least comparable with the best-performing meningococcal-disease-specific scoring systems.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The PRISM score is a useful generic measure of severity of illness in meningococcal disease and can be used to determine the effectiveness of different treatment strategies.
authors.affiliation: Paediatric Intensive Care Unit, University Medical Center Utrecht, Wilhelmina Children's Hospital, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: van Brakel
authors.forename: A J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: van Vught
authors.forename: R J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Gemke
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008589:Meningococcal Infections / Q000401:mortality*; D011379:Prognosis; D012372:ROC Curve; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018570:Risk Assessment; D018805:Sepsis / Q000401:mortality