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Comparison of the APACHE III, APACHE II and Glasgow Coma Scale in acute head injury for prediction of mortality and functional outcome.

OBJECTIVES: This study examines the efficacy of the predicting power for hospital mortality and functional outcome of three different scoring systems for head injury in a neurosurgical intensive care unit (NICU). DESIGN: On the day of admission, data were collected from each patient to compute the Acute Physiology, Age, and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) II and III, and Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) scores. Hospital mortality was defined as the deaths of patients before discharge from hospital. Early mortality was defined as death before the 14th day after admission. Late mortality was defined as death after the 15th day from admission. Functional outcome was evaluated by Index of Independence in Activities of Daily Living (Index of ADL). SETTING: An 8-bed NICU in a 1270-bed medical center in Taichung Veterans General Hospital. PATIENTS AND PARTICIPANTS: Two hundred non-selected patients with acute head injury were included in our study in a consecutive period of 2 years. Patients less than 14 years old were not included. INTERVENTIONS: None. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: Sensitivity, specificity and correct prediction outcome were measured by the chi-square method in three scoring systems. The Youden index was also obtained. The best cut-off point in each scoring system was determined by the Youden index. The difference in Youden index was calculated by Z score. A difference was also considered if the probability value was less than 0.05. The area under Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve was computed. Then the area under ROC of each scoring system was compared by Z score. There was statistical significance if p was less than 0.05. For prediction of hospital mortality, the best cut-off points are 55 for APACHE III, 17 for APACHE II and 5 for GCS. The correct prediction outcome is 82.4% in APACHE III, 78.4% in APACHE II and 81.9% in the GCS. The Youden index has best cut-off points at 0.68 for APACHE III 0.59 for APACHE II, and 0.56 for GCS. The area under Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve is 0.90 in the APACHE III, 0.84 in the APACHE II and 0.86 in the GVS. There are no statistical differences among APACHE III and II, and GCS in terms of correct prediction outcome, Youden Index and the area under the ROC curve. Other physiological variables excluding GCS in APACHE III and II (AP III-GCS, AP II-GCS) have less statistical value in the determination of mortality for acute head injury. For the prediction of late mortality, APACHE III and II yield significantly better results in the area under the ROC curve, correct prediction and Youden index than those of GCS. Other physiological variables (AP III-GCS and AP II-GCS) play an important role in the prediction of late mortality in APACHE scores. For prediction of the functional outcome of surviving patients with acute head injury, the APACHE III yields the best results of correct prediction outcome, Youden index and the area under the ROC curve. CONCLUSION: The APACHE III and II may not replace the role of GCS in cases of acute head injury for hospital or early mortality assessment. But for prediction of the late mortality, the APACHE III and II have better accuracy than GCS. Other physiological variables excluding GCS in the APACHE system play a crucial contribution for late mortality. GCS is simple, less time-consuming and economical for patients with acute head injury for the prediction of hospital and early mortality. The APACHE III provides better prediction for severe morbidity than GCS and APACHE II. Therefore, the APACHE III provides a good assessment not only for hospital and late mortality, but also for functional outcome.

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APACHE III, unlike APACHE II, predicts posthepatectomy mortality in patients with biliary tract carcinoma. Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) II and APACHE III scores after liver resection and to elucidate whether APACHE III is more accurate as a predictor of posthepatectomy mortality. DESIGN: Retrospective, cohort study. SETTING: Intensive care unit in a tertiary care university hospital. PATIENTS: Consecutive series of 101 patients admitted to the intensive care unit immediately after elective hepatectomy for biliary tract carcinoma. INTERVENTIONS: None. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: APACHE II and APACHE III scores were calculated on postoperative days 1, 2, and 3. The 101 subjects were classified into three groups: a) survivors without posthepatectomy liver failure (n = 69); b) survivors with liver failure (n = 17); and c) nonsurvivors with liver failure (n = 15). APACHE III, but not APACHE II, was significantly different between the three groups at all time points. An increased APACHE III score correlated with an increased risk of death, while death did not correlate with APACHE II score. CONCLUSION: In posthepatectomy patients with biliary tract carcinoma, APACHE III, unlike APACHE II, is sufficiently reliable for clinical use to stratify patients and predict mortality.

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[Risk stratification and prognosis in critical surgical patients using the Acute Physiology, Age and Chronic Health III System (APACHE III)].

INTRODUCTION: Outcome prediction in critical surgical patients admitted to intensive care units (ICU) has been established using several scoring systems. To evaluate the predictive performance of the Acute Physiology, Age and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE III) scoring system in these patients, we studied a population admitted to a surgical ICU in our University Hospital. METHODS: We collected prospective data on 220 consecutive patients admitted over a period of 12 months. APACHE III (A3) scores were obtained over the first 24 hours of ICU admission (APACHE II scores were also calculated); data also included age, sex, acute and chronic diseases, ICU and hospital length of stay (LOS), patient location prior to ICU admission and outcome. The relationship of hospital mortality with A3 scores was analyzed using logistic regression, with the discriminatory power of these systems being assessed by the area under the ROC curve and percentage of correct classification. RESULTS: Patient's mean age was 57 +/- 17 years and 44% were male; 53.6% were elective and 46.4% were emergency postoperative patients; 5% of patients had co-morbidities; ICU mortality rate was 10% and in-hospital mortality rate (HMR) was 15%; mean ICU LOS was 3.9 +/- 5.6 days and mean hospital LOS was 9.4 +/- 8.2 days; mean scores were: APACHE III = 33 +/- 2 and APACHE II = 9 +/- 6 points. There was a significant relationship between ascending A3 scores and HMR. APACHE III had a correct classification rate of 87.3% and an area under the ROC curve of 0.830. CONCLUSIONS: In a population of critical surgical patients admitted to our ICU the APACHE III scoring system demonstrated an excellent prognostic performance as measured by contingency tables and areas under the ROC curve; this system can be a useful tool for outcome prediction in critical surgical patients.

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Comparison of outcome from intensive care admission after adjustment for case mix by the APACHE III prognostic system.

STUDY OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the acute physiology, age, chronic health evaluation III (APACHE III) scoring system in the context of general adult ICUs in the United Kingdom. DESIGN: Prospective, noninterventional, cohort study. SETTING: Seventeen general adult ICUs in a discrete area of southwest England. PATIENTS: 12,793 patients admitted between April 1, 1993 and December 31, 1995. MEASUREMENTS: Sociodemographic and severity-of-illness data were collected for all patients admitted to the study units. Formal goodness-of-fit tests were applied and observed mortality was compared with that predicted by using the APACHE III system. RESULTS: For the group of ICUs as a whole, the risk-adjusted standardized mortality ratio (SMR) was 1.23 (95% confidence intervals, 1.12-1.25). For 11 out of 17 ICUs, the SMR was significantly greater than unity (p < 0.05). Calibration, as tested by Hosmer-Lemeshow statistics, was poor (H2 = 312.54; C2 = 332.85; df = 8; p < 0.01); however, model discrimination was good with a total correct classification rate of 82.9% and an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.89. CONCLUSIONS: The excess mortality observed after case-mix adjustment using the APACHE III system in this study may be the result of either poor intensive care performance as compared with the United States or a failure of the APACHE III equation to fit the UK data.

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Resource utilization and outcome in gravely ill intensive care unit patients with predicted in-hospital mortality rates of 95% or higher by APACHE III scores: the relationship with physician and family expectations.

OBJECTIVE: To assess resource utilization and outcome in gravely ill patients admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) and the potential association with health care workers' and family members' expectations. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We retrospectively evaluated ICU patients with a predicted in-hospital mortality rate of 95% or higher (PM95) using the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation III (APACHE III) on 2 consecutive days. All patients were admitted to a single institution between September 30, 1994, and August 9, 2001. RESULTS: The APACHE III database contained data from 38,165 ICU patients during the study interval. Of these, 248 (0.65% of ICU admissions) achieved PM95 status and were included in the study. Between PM95 and hospital discharge, resource utilization (eg, blood transfusion, hemodialysis, surgery, and computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging) was extensive. A total of 23% of patients survived to hospital discharge, yet all but 1 were moderately or severely disabled. One year after achieving PM95, 10% (95% confidence interval, 7%-15%) of patients were alive. For 229 patients, the medical records contained physician documentation that indicated a likely fatal outcome. Thirty-six of these medical records documented unrealistic family expectations of a good outcome. The latter finding correlated with increased resource utilization without significant improvement in 1-year survival. In contrast, absence of physician documentation of a likely fatal outcome In 19 patients correlated with an improved likelihood of hospital (74%) and 1-year (47%) survival. CONCLUSION: Despite better-than-predicted survival outcomes, patient functionality and 1-year survival were poor. Unrealistic family expectations were associated with increased resource utilization without significant survival benefit, whereas absence of physician documentation of likely impending death (which correlated with improved survival) may denote the prognostication skills of experienced clinicians.

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Utilizing findings from the APACHE III research to develop operational information system for the ICU--the APACHE III ICU Management System.

The APACHE III data base reflects the disease, physiologic status, and outcome data from 17,400 ICU patients at 40 hospitals, 26 of which were randomly selected from representative geographic regions, bed size, and teaching status. This provides a nationally representative standard for measuring several important aspects of ICU performance. Results from the study have now been used to develop an automated information system to provide real time information about expected ICU patient outcome, length of stay, production cost, and ICU performance. The information system provides several new capabilities to ICU clinicians, clinic, and hospital administrators. Among the system's capabilities are: the ability to compare local ICU performance against predetermined criteria; the ability to forecast nursing requirements; and, the ability to make both individual and group patient outcome predictions. The system also provides improved administrative support by tracking ICU charges at the point of origin and reduces staff workload eliminating the requirement for several manually maintained logs and patient lists. APACHE III has the capability to electronically interface with and utilize data already captured in existing hospital information systems, automated laboratory information systems, and patient monitoring systems. APACHE III will also be completely integrated with several CIS vendors' products.

Databases, Factual↗

[Validation of the acute physiology and chronic health evaluation (APACHE) III scoring system and comparison with APACHE II in German intensive care units].

OBJECTIVES: The aim of the study was to systematically validate the APACHE III scoring system concerning severity of illness classification and prediction of hospital mortality. Such data have not yet been determined in a large population of critically ill patients in germany. METHODS: 531 patients (ICU stay > 4 hours) were prospectively and consecutively investigated. The day-1-scores and risk-of-death predictions of APACHE III and APACHE II were determined. A comparison was performed between both scoring systems, and the correlation with the observed hospital mortality was examined. RESULTS: For both main validation criteria, as were discrimination (areas under the ROC-curves: APACHE III 0.873; APACHE II 0.859) and calibration (goodness-of-fit testings; p > 0.05), both scoring systems provided satisfying results concerning hospital mortality, no system showing a significantly superior performance. Compared to the observed hospital mortality (13.4%), the prediction of APACHE III (13.2%) was extremely accurate, whereas the prediction of APACHE II was higher (16.8%). The standard (mortality index not significantly < or > 1.0) provided by APACHE III was fulfilled, while the standard given by APACHE II was surpassed. The mean scores and the mean risk-of-death predictions for non-survivors were significantly higher compared to survivors (P < 0.001). The individual score values of both systems were found to have a strong correlation (r = 0.922). CONCLUSIONS: APACHE III (like APACHE II) provides a sufficient severity of disease classification and accurately predicts overall hospital mortality in a representatively large german population of a medical ICU. Therefore APACHE III can be regarded as validated for the use in comparable german ICUs. For use as a standard the more recently introduced APACHE III seems to be superior to the established but older APACHE II. However, each user will--depending on the particular questions to be addressed--carefully have to evaluate, if the improvement of prognostic accuracy really justifies the increased amount of workload necessary for calculating APACHE III score and risk prediction.

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Cytokine profile and correlation to the APACHE III and MPM II scores in patients with sepsis.

In 35 patients fulfilling the criteria of systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) of infectious origin, tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor-soluble receptor (TNF-sR), and interleukin-12 (IL-12), C-reactive protein (CRP) levels and the Acute Physiology, and Chronic Health Evaluation III score (APACHE III) were determined on days 1 to 7, 14, 21, and 28. The Mortality Probability Models (MPM) II sepsis score was assessed at the time of admission into the study. The MPM II sepsis score correlated with IL-6 plasma levels on day 1. The APACHE III scores correlated with plasma levels of TNF-sR on days 2-7, with IL-6 levels on days 3-7, and with CRP levels on days 4-7 (p < 0.01). The MPM II sepsis score, the APACHE III score, and the IL-6, TNF-sR, and CRP levels were significantly different between survivors and nonsurvivors and between patients with and without shock (p < 0.05). A significant decrease of the APACHE III scores, IL-6, and CRP levels was observed over the study period in the survivor group only (p < 0.05), while neither the dynamics of TNF-alpha nor IL-12 plasma levels contributed to the risk estimation of mortality.

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Mortality discrimination in acute myocardial infarction: comparison between APACHE III and SAPS II prognosis systems. PAEEC Group.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the Acute Physiology, Age and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) III with the Simplified Acute Physiology Score (SAPS II) in discriminating in-hospital mortality for intensive care unit (ICU) patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI). DESIGN: Prospective, observational, multicenter study. SETTING: 70 Spanish ICUs. PATIENTS AND PARTICIPANTS: 1711 patients with AMI and representative of Spanish ICUs. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: APACHE III score, APACHE III system probability of death (APACHE III probability), SAPS II score and in-hospital mortality were noted for each patient. Two hundred and twenty three (13.0 %) patients died in the hospital. The sensitivity (+/- SE), specificity (+/- SE), and accuracy (+/- SE) for the APACHE III score were, respectively, 75.8 +/- 2.9, 75.9 +/- 1.1, and 75.9 +/- 1.0. The corresponding figures for APACHE III probability were 75.3 +/- 2.9, 79.2 +/- 1.1, and 78.7 +/- 1.0, and for SAPS II 72.2 +/- 3.0, 75.9 +/- 1.1, and 75.4 +/- 1.0. CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate good discrimination by the three tests. APACHE III probability shows a statistically significant improvement in accuracy and specificity when compared with the two scores.

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[Prediction of mortality and quality of life in polytraumatized patients: APACHE II versus APACHE III].

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the APACHE II and III prognostic assessment systems as predictors of mortality in polytraumatized patients and to compare each system's admission assessments to the patient's quality of life one month, six months and one year later. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A prospective study of 130 polytraumatized patients admitted to the critical care unit was carried out. A polytraumatized patient was defined as "presenting two or more traumatic lesions that were immediately or eventually life-threatening". We studied age, sex, type of trauma, mortality, mean APACHE II and APACHE III scores during the first three days in the critical care unit for patients who survived and those who died, estimating relative risk of mortality by APACHE II and APACHE III, and quality of life one month, six months and one year after admission using Karnofsky scores (KPS). RESULTS: Mean patient age was 46.47 +/- 20.19 years; 78% were men and 22% women. Overall mortality was 20%. The most frequent trauma was craniocerebral (70.76%), followed by injuries ot the chest (53.8%) and extremities (46.15%). Mean APACHE II and APACHE III scores during the first three days were 10.22 +/- 5.33 and 32.75 +/- 16.42, respectively. Mean APACHE II and III scores were significantly higher (p = 0.02) in patients who died than in survivors (14.33 +/- 5.43 and 9.7 +/- 5.2, respectively, for APACHE II; and 43.27 +/- 17.68 and 30.16 +/- 15.79, respectively, for APACHE III). For each point increase of APACHE II or III scores, relative risk of mortality increased 1.09% (p = 0.03) and 1.02% (p = 0.03), respectively. Patients with APACHE II scores over 12 were 3.53 times more likely to die (p = 0.02). Patients with APACHE III scores over 35 were 3.05 times more likely to die (p = 0.02). One month after admission, 6.4% of patients had a KPS of 100 (normal, as before trauma), 35.8% achieved this score six months after admission and 82% after one year (p = 0.01). Mean APACHE III upon admission was significantly lower (p = 0.045) in patients who achieved KPS 100. CONCLUSIONS: The APACHE II and APACHE III prognostic systems predict relative risk of death in polytraumatized patients. APACHE III, but not APACHE II, at admission is significantly related to quality of life one year later.

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Prospective independent validation of APACHE III models in an Australian tertiary adult intensive care unit.

Evaluation of the performance of the APACHE III (Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation) ICU (intensive care unit) and hospital mortality models at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane is reported. Prospective collection of demographic, diagnostic, physiological, laboratory, admission and discharge data of 5681 consecutive eligible admissions (1 January 1995 to 1 January 2000) was conducted at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, a metropolitan Australian tertiary referral medical/surgical adult ICU ROC (receiver operating characteristic) curve areas for the APACHE III ICU mortality and hospital mortality models demonstrated excellent discrimination. Observed ICU mortality (9.1%) was significantly overestimated by the APACHE III model adjusted for hospital characteristics (10.1%), but did not significantly differ from the prediction of the generic APACHE III model (8.6%). In contrast, observed hospital mortality (14.8%) agreed well with the prediction of the APACHE III model adjusted for hospital characteristics (14.6%), but was significantly underestimated by the unadjusted APACHE III model (13.2%). Calibration curves and goodness-of-fit analysis using Hosmer-Lemeshow statistics, demonstrated that calibration was good with the unadjusted APACHE III ICU mortality model, and the APACHE III hospital mortality model adjusted for hospital characteristics. Post hoc analysis revealed a declining annual SMR (standardized mortality rate) during the study period. This trend was present in each of the non-surgical, emergency and elective surgical diagnostic groups, and the change was temporally related to increased specialist staffing levels. This study demonstrates that the APACHE III model performs well on independent assessment in an Australian hospital. Changes observed in annual SMR using such a validated model support an hypothesis of improved survival outcomes 1995-1999.

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The APACHE III prognostic system. Risk prediction of hospital mortality for critically ill hospitalized adults.

The objective of this study was to refine the APACHE (Acute Physiology, Age, Chronic Health Evaluation) methodology in order to more accurately predict hospital mortality risk for critically ill hospitalized adults. We prospectively collected data on 17,440 unselected adult medical/surgical intensive care unit (ICU) admissions at 40 US hospitals (14 volunteer tertiary-care institutions and 26 hospitals randomly chosen to represent intensive care services nationwide). We analyzed the relationship between the patient's likelihood of surviving to hospital discharge and the following predictive variables: major medical and surgical disease categories, acute physiologic abnormalities, age, preexisting functional limitations, major comorbidities, and treatment location immediately prior to ICU admission. The APACHE III prognostic system consists of two options: (1) an APACHE III score, which can provide initial risk stratification for severely ill hospitalized patients within independently defined patient groups; and (2) an APACHE III predictive equation, which uses APACHE III score and reference data on major disease categories and treatment location immediately prior to ICU admission to provide risk estimates for hospital mortality for individual ICU patients. A five-point increase in APACHE III score (range, 0 to 299) is independently associated with a statistically significant increase in the relative risk of hospital death (odds ratio, 1.10 to 1.78) within each of 78 major medical and surgical disease categories. The overall predictive accuracy of the first-day APACHE III equation was such that, within 24 h of ICU admission, 95 percent of ICU admissions could be given a risk estimate for hospital death that was within 3 percent of that actually observed (r2 = 0.41; receiver operating characteristic = 0.90). Recording changes in the APACHE III score on each subsequent day of ICU therapy provided daily updates in these risk estimates. When applied across the individual ICUs, the first-day APACHE III equation accounted for the majority of variation in observed death rates (r2 = 0.90, p less than 0.0001).

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An analysis of excess mortality not predicted to occur by APACHE III in an Australian level III intensive care unit.

The APACHE III derived standardized mortality ratio has been suggested as a statistic to measure intensive care unit (ICU) effectiveness. From 1991 data collected on 519 consecutive admissions to the Royal Adelaide Hospital ICU a standardized mortality ratio of 1.25 was calculated. Of the 174 deaths only 95 had a prediction of death greater than 0.5. As part of a quality assurance study we undertook a retrospective case note audit to try to identify factors that were associated with the low mortality prediction (< 0.5) in hospital deaths. Firstly we analysed the patient population that died to determine the factors that were different between patients who had a mortality prediction of greater than 0.5 versus those who had a mortality prediction of less than 0.5. Next we analysed the patient population with a mortality prediction of less than 0.5 and compared actual survivors with patients who died in hospital. Amongst low mortality prediction patients admitted to the Royal Adelaide Hospital ICU we identified age, a history of acute myocardial infarction, presentation to ICU after a cardiac arrest or with an elevated creatinine and the development of acute renal failure and septicaemia during the ICU admission as being associated with in-hospital mortality. We also documented that late hospital deaths on the ward after ICU discharge occurred more frequently with low predicted hospital mortality ICU patients. Factors other than the APACHE III score may be associated with hospital deaths of ICU patients.

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[Prognostic systems in intensive care: TRISS, SAPS II, APACHE III].

BACKGROUND: To validate the accuracy of SAPS II, APACHE III and TRISS for the prediction of mortality in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at polytrauma patients admission. The outcome of multiple trauma patients is often linked to the degree of physiologic dysfunction and to the extension of anatomic lesions, the age of the patient and the lesion mechanism. METHODS: The study population consisted of 93 cases of multiple injured patients hospitalised at the ICU of the Padua hospital from October 1998 to October 1999; the term polytraumatized patient is referred to patients who have multiple lesions of which at least one potentially endangers, immediately or in a short term, their life. These cases were evaluated with the APACHE III, SAPS II, Revised Trauma Score and Injury Severity Score. The predictive power of each system was evaluated by using decision matrix analysis to compare observed and predicted outcome with a decision criterion of 0.50 and 0.40 for risk of hospital death. RESULTS: All trauma score systems under study showed high accuracy rates, above all if they are used with a 40% positive test. CONCLUSIONS: The prognostic scales used in this study showed a good correlation between expected and observed cases, particularly with TRISS and APACHE III systems. The APACHE III system seems to be the most reliable of the different methods analysed. These prognostic systems are seldom or occasionally used in the ICU, in Padua and in the whole of Italy, so Italian data are not suitable to be compared to international ones. Due to urgency, the importance of the evaluation scales is often underestimated, but even if they require time and attention, they surely can be useful in the evaluation of the treatment, and not only of a polytraumatized patient.

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Acute physiology, age, and chronic health evaluation (APACHE) III score is an alternative efficient predictor of mortality in burn patients.

The present study was performed to evaluate the prognostic value of the acute physiology, age, chronic health evaluation (APACHE) III score in burn patients. We hypothesised that APACHE III score efficiently predicts mortality of burn patients as it reflects the physiological changes in the acute phase and the severity of the underlying illness. Data such as age, gender, inhalation injury, total burn surface area (TBSA), burn index (BI), prognostic burn index (PBI), APACHE III score and outcome of 105 hospitalised patients were analysed retrospectively. TBSA, BI, PBI, and APACHE III score in the mortality group were significantly higher than those of surviving group. The mean scores of surviving versus mortality groups were as follows: TBSA, 19.2+/-17.8% versus 69.1+/-28.4%, p<0.0001; BI, 12.8+/-13.1% versus 66.8+/-28.6%, p<0.0001; PBI, 68.8+/-26.0% versus 124.4+/-33.6%, p<0.0001; APACHE III score, 28.4+/-22.2% versus 71.3+/-32.1%, p<0.0001. PBI and APACHE III score showed marked associations between higher scores and higher mortality. APACHE III score showed a significant correlation with PBI (p<0.0001). The present study suggested that APACHE III score could be used as an alternative efficient predictor of mortality in burn patients.

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Utility of Acute Physiology, Age, and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE III) score in maternal admissions to the intensive care unit.

OBJECTIVE: A mean Acute Physiology, Age, and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE III) score of > 50 is associated with increased intensive care unit mortality rate in nonpregnant cardiac and trauma patients. The objective was to determine the usefulness of the APACHE III score in maternal admissions to an intensive care unit in a tertiary care center in an urban multicultural city. STUDY DESIGN: This was a retrospective review of all maternal admissions (> 20 weeks of gestation or after delivery) to an intensive care unit between January 2002 and May 2004. Demographics, obstetric and medical history, and 20 physiologic variables that comprise the APACHE III were recorded. The minimum APACHE III score (lowest risk of death) is 0; maximum is 299. The association between APACHE III score and maternal death was assessed with Mann Whitney U test. Significance was assumed at a probability value of < .05. RESULTS: Fifty-eight subjects met the study criteria. Thirty percent of these women were admitted antepartum (27 +/- 1.0 weeks of gestation); 31% of the women were admitted on the day of delivery; and 29% of the women were admitted after delivery. Mean maternal age was 27 +/- 6.7 years. Acute conditions that resulted in transfer to the intensive care unit included preeclampsia (24%), cardiorespiratory disease (21%), hemorrhage (16%), infection (12%), trauma (7%), and thromboembolism (3%). Fifty-five percent of the women had no previous underlying obstetric complications, and 98% of the women had no underlying chronic health condition. Fifty-eight percent of the women received care in a medical intensive care unit; 28% of the women received care in a surgical intensive care unit; 10% of the women received care in a cardiac intensive care unit, and 3% of the women received care in a neurologic intensive care unit. The mean intensive care unit stay was 3.7 +/- 4.6 days, and the mean hospital stay was 9.0 +/- 7 days. Three patients died; the rest of the patients went home in good condition. The median APACHE III score was 34 (range, 14-102) and was not correlated with maternal death. CONCLUSION: The APACHE III is not associated with risk of intensive care unit-related maternal death.

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[Relationship between endotoxemia and APACHE-III scoring and integrated therapy of Chinese and Western medicine].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the relationship between endotoxemia and the severity of disease condition and therapeutic effect. METHODS: According to randomized controlled principle, the 153 acute infectious patients were divided into simple antibiotics treated group and antibiotics plus Chinese drugs combined treated group, and patients in each group were subdivided into 3 types according to acute physiology and chronic health evaluation (APACHE-III) scoring: type A (APACHE-III scoring < or = 20 points), type B (APACHE-III scoring 21-40 points) and type C (APACHE-III scoring > 40 points). The 77 cases in the simple treated group were 40 males and 37 females, aging 18-76 years, mean 46.5 +/- 27.5 years, 41 cases of type A, 28 of type B and 8 of type C, treatment course 10-14 days, mean 11.5 +/- 2.5 days. The 76 cases in the combined treated group were 39 males and 37 females, aging 18-70 years, mean 44.5 +/- 25.5 years, 37 of type A, 30 of type B and 9 of type C, treatment course 10-14 days, mean 10.5 +/- 2.5 days. Limulus test was used to determine the endotoxin content in peripheral blood of patients, and further analysis on the relationship between endotoxemia and APACHE-III scoring was conducted. RESULTS: Acute severe infectious patients whose APACHE-III scoring > 20 points occurred endotoxemia (P < 0.05), and the condition of disease was positively related to the APACHE-III scoring (r = 0.718, P < 0.05). Chinese drugs plus antibiotics can obviously alleviate endotoxemia (P < 0.05) and improve the prognosis of patients. CONCLUSION: Endotoxemia can serve as a referential parameter for predicting the severity of disease. Integrated therapy of Chinese and western medicine in treating bacterial infection revealed better results than that of antibiotics solely.

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