title: External validation of the modified Thoracoscore in a new thoracic surgery program: prediction of in-hospital mortality.
abstract: Informed consent prior to any surgical intervention should include in-hospital survival estimation after the procedure performed. The recently developed Thoracoscore predicts well the postoperative mortality possibility. The purpose of our study was to test the modified Thoracoscore performance in our new thoracic program. One hundred and fifty-five consecutive patients underwent thoracic surgery procedure within two years. The procedures performed were: 62 lung resections, 10 open tumor biopsies, 21 neck and mediastinal procedures, 33 chest wall and pleural procedures, 8 tracheal procedures, 3 esophageal procedures, 13 minor cardiac procedures, and 5 chest trauma cases. The modified Thoracoscore was calculated based on the following variables: age, gender, priority of the procedure, malignancy, type of procedure, Zubrod score, ASA class, and number of co-morbidities. The observed mortality was 5.2% (eight deaths) while the predicted one based on the modified Thoracoscore was 4.9%. The scoring system we used had excellent discriminatory ability with a C statistic (0.95, 95% CIs 0.91-0.99). The Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of-fit was not statistically significant (P=0.82), indicating acceptable calibration of the model for the present series. The modified Thoracoscore's ability to predict postoperative survival in the whole context of thoracic surgery performs well in our program. Application of any risk scoring system requires external validation and provides comparison of the actual outcomes with other programs.
authors: Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, 'Attikon' Hospital, Voula 16673, Athens, Greece. themis65@hotmail.com
authors: Themistokles
authors: T
authors: Chamogeorgakis
authors: Ioannis
authors: I
authors: Toumpoulis
authors: Periclis
authors: P
authors: Tomos
authors: Costas
authors: C
authors: Ieromonachos
authors: Dimitrios
authors: D
authors: Angouras
authors: Emmanouil
authors: E
authors: Georgiannakis
authors: Panagiotis
authors: P
authors: Michail
authors: Chris
authors: C
authors: Rokkas
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000465:Algorithms; D005260:Female; D006115:Greece / Q000453:epidemiology; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D006785:Hospitals, University / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015397:Program Evaluation; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012372:ROC Curve; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors; D019616:Thoracic Surgical Procedures / Q000401:mortality*; D013997:Time Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome