Certain scores can predict the susceptibility of trauma patients to multiple infections

Trauma patients are at risk of developing multiple infections while in the hospital, but it is difficult to identify those who are especially susceptible.

Now, a team from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) discovered that certain scores already used to assess the severity of a trauma patient’s condition may provide clues. The findings are published in MORE ONE.

In the researchers’ analysis of information on 1,665 trauma patients, five of those “disease severity” scores, called the Denver score, the Marshall score, the acute physiology assessment score, and the chronic health assessment II (APACHE II), injury severity score (ISS) and the New Injury Severity Score (NISS) – were examined as predictors of susceptibility to multiple independent infectious episodes.

These scores differ in how they assess a patient’s condition by measuring physiological responses or injury patterns.

The researchers found that the Denver and Marshall scores, which are used to assess the severity of organ failure in the setting of traumatic injury, can accurately predict susceptibility to multiple independent infections after trauma, even when scores are determined. long before any clinical signs. infection

“Our findings could facilitate clinical decision-making by identifying patients at increased risk for multiple infections during their hospital stay,” said lead author Laurence G. Rahme, PhD, Director of the MGH Laboratory of Molecular Surgery Professor of Surgery and Microbiology at Harvard Medical School and senior scientific staff at Shriners Hospital for Children.

Early prognosis, before infections occur, could strategically guide the timing and duration of antibiotic administration to these patients.

It would also allow physicians to implement prophylactic measures, improve patient nutrition, and formulate powerful personalized treatment plans for this group of patients, thus protecting those at increased risk of repeated infections during their recovery period. “

Laurence G. Rahme, PhD, a research scholar at MGH 2020-2025

Dr. Rahme added that such personalized treatment plans could save costs because they would limit interventions only to those patients most likely to develop infections, and would help doctors prevent hospital-acquired infections that can lead to prolonged hospital stays. and the need for extra care