Faculty Collaboration Database

GCS-Pupil Score Has a Stronger Association with Mortality and Poor Functional Outcome than GCS Alone in Pediatric Severe Traumatic Brain Injury. Pediatr Neurosurg 2021;56(5):432-439

Date

07/21/2021

Pubmed ID

34284393

DOI

10.1159/000517330

Scopus ID

2-s2.0-85111560291 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site)   4 Citations

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), used to classify the severity of traumatic brain injury (TBI), is associated with mortality and functional outcomes. However, GCS can be affected by sedation and neuromuscular blockade. GCS-Pupil (GCS-P) score, calculated as GCS minus Pupil Reactivity Score (PRS), was shown to better predict outcomes in a retrospective cohort of adult TBI patients. We evaluated the applicability of GCS-P to a large retrospective pediatric severe TBI (sTBI) cohort.

METHODS: Admissions to pediatric intensive care units in the Virtual Pediatric Systems (VPS, LLC) database from 2010 to 2015 with sTBI were included. We collected GCS, PRS (number of nonreactive pupils), cardiac arrest, abusive head trauma status, illness severity scores, pediatric cerebral performance category (PCPC) score, and mortality. GCS-P was calculated as GCS minus PRS. χ2 or Fisher's exact test and Mann-Whitney U test compared categorical and continuous variables, respectively. Classification and regression tree analysis identified thresholds of GCS-P and GCS along with other independent factors which were further examined using multivariable regression analysis to identify factors independently associated with mortality and unfavorable PCPC at PICU discharge.

RESULTS: Among the 2,682 patients included in the study, mortality was 23%, increasing from 4.7% for PRS = 0 to 80% for PRS = 2. GCS-P identified more severely injured patients with GCS-P scores 1 and 2 who had worse outcomes. GCS-P ≤ 2 had higher odds for mortality, OR = 68.4 (95% CI = 50.6-92.4) and unfavorable PCPC, OR = 17.3 (8.1, 37.0) compared to GCS ≤ 5. GCS-P ≤ 2 also had higher specificity and positive predictive value for both mortality and unfavorable PCPC compared to GCS ≤ 5.

CONCLUSIONS: GCS-P, by incorporating pupil reactivity to GCS scoring, is more strongly associated with mortality and poor functional outcome at PICU discharge in children with sTBI.

Author List

Balakrishnan B, VanDongen-Trimmer H, Kim I, Hanson SJ, Zhang L, Simpson PM, Farias-Moeller R

Authors

Binod Balakrishnan MBBS Associate Professor in the Pediatrics department at Medical College of Wisconsin
Raquel Farias-Moeller MD Associate Professor in the Neurology department at Medical College of Wisconsin
Irene Kim MD Assistant Professor in the Neurosurgery department at Medical College of Wisconsin
Pippa M. Simpson PhD Adjunct Professor in the Pediatrics department at Medical College of Wisconsin

MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold

Adult
Brain Injuries
Brain Injuries, Traumatic
Child
Glasgow Coma Scale
Humans
Predictive Value of Tests
Retrospective Studies