Purpose: Trauma is the leading cause of death among children age 1 to 15 years. The initial assessment of injured children is also important for the adequate treatment and transfer of these patients when required. A number of trauma scoring systems have been applied to the pediatric trauma population, with the Pediatric Trauma Score (PTS) being specifically developed as a triage tool for specifically for children. The ability of the PTS to predict the severity of an injury and mortality, and the value of the PTS were evaluated.
Methods: Seventy patients younger than 16 years of age, with multiple organ injuries, were assessed for 5 years, from January 1, 1997 to December 31, 2001. The demographic and clinical variables were retrospectively analyzed and the PTS assessed.
Results: Motor vehicle related injuries caused the majority of the multiple organ injuries the children, with liver injuries accounting for the greatest numbers. The survivals showed differences in relation to age, sex, number of injured organs and PTS, but no statistical significance was proved from a univariate analysis. From the multivariated analysis, only the PTS showed statistical significance. There were 5 deaths where the PTS was more than 9 points, was accounting for 55% of all mortalities.
Conclusion: The PTS is an important triage for injured children, but could not reflect the prognosis of the injured patients when the clinical appearances were not reflected.
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