Predicting Mortality in Severe Burns-What Is the Score?: Evaluation and Comparison of 4 Mortality Prediction Scores in an Irish Population.

Abstract

Severe burns present a significant clinical challenge and are resource intensive. Predicting mortality at admission for burn patients is useful in determining the likely outcomes of interventions and in stratifying levels of care. In addition, it can provide benchmarks for audit and research. More than 45 composite models exist for the prediction of mortality in thermal injury, of which only a handful have been developed with methodological rigor.1 The 4 most routinely used are the Revised Baux score,2 the Belgian Outcome in Burn Injury score,3 Boston score,4 and Abbreviated Burn Severity Index (ABSI).5 Our aim was to validate and compare the utility of these scoring systems in an Irish population.