Unification of the revised trauma score.
BACKGROUND
The Revised Trauma Score (RTS) calculated with Major Outcome Trauma Study weights (MTOS-RTS) is currently the standard physiologic severity score in trauma research and quality control. It is often confused with the Triage-RTS (T-RTS), a version that is easier to calculate but only intended for clinical triage.


OBJECTIVE
To compare the accuracy of the MTOS-RTS to the RTS calculated with weights derived from the study population (POP-RTS) and the T-RTS, for predicting mortality in a trauma population.


METHODS
The study population consists of 22,388 patients, drawn from the trauma registries of three Level I trauma centers. The predictive accuracy of the MTOS-RTS, POP-RTS, and the T-RTS were compared using measures of discrimination and model fit from logistic regression models.


RESULTS
The MTOS-RTS, the POP-RTS, and the T-RTS had the same discrimination (Area under the Receiver Operating Curve [AUC] = 0.841). The POP-RTS and the T-RTS had a slightly better model fit than the MTOS-RTS (AIC = 8010, 8010, and 8067, respectively). The T-RTS had equal discrimination and equal or better model fit than the MTOS-RTS in the whole sample, in each of the three trauma centers and in the population of patients with severe head trauma. The T-RTS was also equivalent to the POP-RTS in all of these population sub-groups.


CONCLUSIONS
The T-RTS could replace the MTOS-RTS as the standard physiologic severity score for trauma outcome prediction. The advantages of using the T-RTS over the MTOS-RTS are ease of calculation, the need for only one measure for triage and mortality prediction purposes and universal adaptation to a broad range of trauma populations.
Moore
Lynne
L
Unité de Recherche en Traumatologie, Centre Hospitalier Affilié Universitaire de Québec, Quebec City, Canada. Lynne.moore@cha.quebec.qc.ca
Lavoie
André
A
Abdous
Belkacem
B
Le Sage
Natalie
N
Liberman
Moishe
M
Bergeron
Eric
E
Emond
Marcel
M
D000368:Aged; D019540:Area Under Curve; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008875:Middle Aged; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D011792:Quebec; D012372:ROC Curve; D012042:Registries; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014193:Trauma Centers; D015599:Trauma Severity Indices; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000145:classification / Q000401:mortality*