Utility of Pre-operative Glasgow Coma Scale and SKALE Scoring System to Predict need for Post-operative Ventilator Support in Intracranial Tumour Patients

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the feasibility of GCS and SKALE in predicting post-operative requirement of ventilator support in intracranial tumour patients. Methods: Seventy patients undergoing intracranial tumour resection surgery were assessed pre-operatively using GCS and SKALE scoring systems to predict their post-operative requirement of ventilator support. The data was analysed using SPSS software and ShapiroWilk test and Chi-Square tests were apllied to compare the obtain data. Results: The study included 70 patients, of whom 88.6% had good GCS of 13-15 and 72.9% had good SKALE score of >8. We found that all patients with poor GCS ≤8 required post -operative ventilator support, while only 4 out 62 patients with GCS 13-15 required ventilator support post-operatively (p value <0.05). Patients with SKALE score ≤8 also had higher incidence of post-operative ventilator requirement (31.6%) as against those with SKALE score >8 (11.8%). Conclusion: GCS is a good predictor of post-operative ventilator requirement. SKALE scoring system requires further studies to prove its utility.