However, in available literature we have not found a scale related to acute mediastinitis. Most probably it results from rare prevalence of this disease and difficulty in
gathering appropriately rich material within one medical centre. The proposed prognostic method, based on the evaluation of 8 simple and easy to obtain parameters compiled in the form of 3 factors, allows dichotomic categorization of selleck chemicals patients into 2 groups as regards the predicted selleckchem prognosis: survival or death. When the calculated values of individual factors are combined, it is easy to distinguish within first few hours of hospitalization the patients whose prognosis is worse than that of the others. Obviously, the selection of proper parameters for the estimation find more of the predicted prognosis in the course of AM can be the subject of discussion.
In practice the first information about the patient’s general condition is obtained during taking the history data. At this stage we can obtain the data regarding patient’s age and coexisting diseases which in the proposed prognostic scale are important for calculating factor 3 values. In critically ill patients with sepsis, older age and coexisting diseases are associated with poor prognosis [18–20]. There are several prognostic scales considering the effectof coexisting diseases on the prognosis. The best known are: Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI), Davies (Stokes) score and Index of Coexisting Diseases (ICED). They are widely applied in the patients selleck compound dialyzed due to renal failure [21–24]. Charlson scale, which estimates similar parameters as our scale but it is based on different methodology, is used most frequently. It takes into account 19 coexisting diseases which are assigned with a score. CCI includes age as one of the evaluated elements and the age scores are counted according
to the following scheme: 1 score for each decade over 40 years of age. The total score enables to predict the prognosis [25]. It was demonstrated in C-Y Wang’s study that higher value of CCI (>2) in patients treated surgically due to stage I of lung cancer was associated with higher mortality rate than in the group of patients with lower number of comorbidities; CCI < 2 [26]. The proposed by us prognostic scale is different because the data on the general state (F3) are only one of three estimated elements. If after substituting the data concerning age and coexisting diseases for the given formula for “F3” we obtain the value < +0.4, there increases the chance for the patient’s survival. F3 is important for the whole scale but according to our calculations it has a lower diagnostic value compared to the remaining two factors (SNC = 73%, SPC = 71%).