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Severity Categories (severity + category)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Medical Sciences	87%

Selected Abstracts

Severity categories of the International Prostate Symptom Score before, and urinary morbidity after, permanent prostate brachytherapy

BJU INTERNATIONAL, Issue 1 2006
SARAH GUTMAN
OBJECTIVE To determine if the International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS) before seed implantation, stratified into mild (0,7), moderate (8,19) and severe (>20) categories, predicts brachytherapy-related morbidity in terms of IPSS resolution, catheter dependency and the need for surgical intervention after brachytherapy. PATIENTS AND METHODS From January 1998 to September 2003, 1034 consecutive patients had permanent interstitial brachytherapy for clinical stage T1b-T3a NXM0 (2002 system) prostate cancer. Of the 1034 patients, 739 (71.5%) presented with an IPSS of 0,7, 287 (27.7%) of 8,19, and eight (0.8%) of ,,20. The IPSS 8,19 cohort was further stratified into 8,14 (237 men) and 15,19 (50 men) subgroups. The median follow-up was 38.2 months. In all patients, an ,-blocker was initiated before brachytherapy and continued at least until the IPSS normalized, the latter defined as a return to within 1 point of that before implantation. A median of 21 IPSS questionnaires were obtained per patient. Several clinical, treatment and dosimetric variables were evaluated as predictors of urinary morbidity. RESULTS For the entire cohort, the IPSS peaked at a mean of 0.5 months after implantation and resolved at a mean of 1.7 months. At 5 years after brachytherapy, 90.1% of patients at risk (88.8%, 95.5%, and four of eight patients with a pre-implant IPSS of 0,7, 8,19 and ,,20, respectively) were within the IPSS 0,7 category. Compared to the pre-implant IPSS, 13 patients (8%) were assigned to a higher IPSS severity category. Neither prolonged urinary catheter dependency (>5 days; 16 patients, 1.5%) or transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP, 17 patients, 1.6%) depended on the pre-implant IPSS subgroup. In Cox regression analysis, IPSS resolution was best predicted by pre-implant IPSS, prolonged catheter dependency by patient age, and TURP by any catheter dependency, the maximum IPSS increase and the maximum urethral dose. CONCLUSIONS The IPSS before implantation predicted the resolution of IPSS after brachytherapy, but did not correlate with substantial urinary morbidity, including catheter dependency or the need for TURP. At 5 years after brachytherapy, 90.1% of patients at risk were assigned to the IPSS 0,7 category. [source]

Screening for Adolescent Depression in a Pediatric Emergency Department

ACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE, Issue 5 2006
Emily Gale Scott MD
Abstract Objectives: To describe the prevalence of depressive symptoms in adolescents presenting to the emergency department (ED) and to describe their demographics and outcomes compared with adolescents endorsing low levels of depressive symptoms. Methods: The Beck Depression Inventory,2nd edition (BDI-II) was used to screen all patients 13,19 years of age who presented to the ED during the period of study. The BDI-II is a 21-item self-report instrument used to measure the presence and severity of depressive symptoms in adolescents and adults. Demographics and clinical outcomes of screening-program participants were abstracted by chart review. Patients were categorized into one of four severity categories (minimal, mild, moderate, or severe) and one of three presenting complaint categories (medical, trauma, mental health). Results: Four hundred eighty-seven patients were approached, and 351(72%) completed the screening protocol. Participants endorsed minimal (n= 192, 55%), mild (n= 52, 15%), moderate (n= 41, 11%), or severe depressive symptoms (n= 66, 19%). Those with moderate or severe depressive symptoms were more likely to be hospitalized. Of patients completing the BDI-II, 72% with psychiatric, 12% with traumatic, and 19% with medical chief complaints endorsed either moderate or severe depressive symptoms. Conclusions: Depressive symptoms are prevalent in this screening sample, regardless of presenting complaint. A substantial proportion of patients with nonpsychiatric chief complaints endorsed moderate or severe depressive symptoms. A screening program might allow earlier identification and referral of patients at risk for depression. [source]

A System for Grouping Presenting Complaints: The Pediatric Emergency Reason for Visit Clusters

ACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE, Issue 8 2005
MSCE, Marc H. Gorelick MD
Abstract Objectives: To develop a set of chief complaint groupings for pediatric emergency department (ED) visits that is comprehensive, parsimonious, clinically sensible, and evidence-based. Methods: Investigators derived candidate chief complaint clusters and ranked them a priori into three perceived severity categories. Pediatric visits were extracted from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS); data for years 1998 and 2000 (n= 13,186) were used for derivation and data for year 1999 (n= 5,365) were used for validation. Visits were assigned to clusters based on the recorded complaints; clusters were combined to ensure adequate numbers for analysis (minimum n= 20), and the clusters were reviewed for clinical sensibility. Resource utilization was categorized in three levels: routine (examination only), ED treatment (tests or therapy in the ED but not admitted), and admission. Area under the receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) was used to demonstrate the discriminative ability of the clusters in predicting resource use. Results: There were 463 unique complaints in the derivation database; 95 (20%) had a single associated visit. Fifty-two clusters were generated; only 2.4% of complaints were classified as other. The eight most common clusters encompassed 52% of the visits. The top five were fever (11%), extremity pain/injury, vomiting, cough, and trauma (unspecified). Complaint clusters were associated with actual resource utilization: for routine care, the AUC was 0.73 (0.74 in the validation set), and for admission, the AUC was 0.77 (0.74 in the validation set). Both resource utilization and triage classification increased with increased expert severity ranking (test for trend, p < 0.001). Conclusions: The proposed Pediatric Emergency Reason for Visit Cluster (PERC) system is a comprehensive yet parsimonious, clinically sensible means of categorizing pediatric ED complaints. The PERC system's association with measures of acuity and resource utilization makes it a potentially useful tool in epidemiologic and health services research. [source]

A scoring system for the classification of ,-thalassemia/Hb E disease severity

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HEMATOLOGY, Issue 6 2008
Orapan Sripichai
,-Thalassemia intermediate patients show a remarkable clinical heterogeneity. We examined the phenotypic diversity of 950 ,-thalassemia/Hb E patients in an attempt to construct a system for classifying disease severity. A novel scoring system based on six independent parameters, hemoglobin level, age at disease presentation, age at receiving first blood transfusion, requirement for transfusion, spleen size, and growth and development, was able to separate patients into three distinctive severity categories: mild, moderate, and severe courses. This system, therefore, can increase the accuracy of studies of genotype,phenotype interactions and facilitate decisions for appropriate patient management. Am. J. Hematol. 2008. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]

Tomato spotted wilt virus in peanut tissue types and physiological effects related to disease incidence and severity,

PLANT PATHOLOGY, Issue 4 2005
D. Rowland
Three peanut cultivars, Georgia Green, NC-V11, and ANorden, were grown using production practices that encouraged the development of Tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV). The progression of TSWV infection was examined through the season using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) tests on different tissue types [roots, leaves, pegs (pod attachment stem structures) and pods] and the effect of TSWV infection on physiological functions was examined at three harvest dates. Plants were classed into three severity categories: (i) no TSWV symptoms or previous positive ELISA tests; (ii) less than 50% of leaf tissue exhibiting TSWV symptoms; and (iii) greater than 50% of leaf tissue affected. TSWV showed a slow rate of infection at the beginning of the season and a greater percentage of infection of the roots than in the leaves. Photosynthesis was reduced in virus-affected infected plants by an average of 30% at the mid-season harvest and 51% at the late season harvest compared with virus-free plants across all three cultivars. Leaf tissue with symptoms had lower photosynthetic rates than healthy leaves. There were small differences among cultivars, with cv. ANorden maintaining higher average photosynthetic levels than cv. Georgia Green and higher transpirational levels than cv. NC-V11. The ability to maintain high assimilation physiology in the presence of the virus may help cultivars withstand TSWV infection and maintain final yields. [source]

Impact of faecal incontinence severity on health domains

COLORECTAL DISEASE, Issue 3 2005
M. Deutekom
Abstract Objective Faecal incontinence is a problem that can have a major impact on the quality of life of those affected. Our aim was to relate the severity of faecal incontinence to the impact on several general health domains. Methods Patients from a prospective diagnostic cohort study, performed in 16 medical centres in the Netherlands, were invited to the study. The severity of incontinence was determined with the Vaizey score, which ranges from 0 (continent) to 24 (totally incontinent). Based on their Vaizey score, patients were assigned to one of five severity categories. All patients completed the EuroQol-5D instrument, which evaluates the existence of problems on five health domains: mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort and anxiety/depression. Results Data from 259 consecutive patients (25 male) could be analysed. Their mean age was 59 years (SD ± 12). The mean duration of faecal incontinence was 8.1 years (SD ± 8). The proportion of patients reporting problems rose significantly with increasing severity of faecal incontinence in the domains of usual activities (ranging from 36% in the least severe group to 71% in the most severe group (P < 0.001)), pain/discomfort (ranging from 35% to 60%; P = 0.025), and anxiety/depression (ranging from 23% to 49%; P = 0.037). No significant trends could be observed in the domains of mobility and self-care. Conclusion There exists a significant relation between severity of incontinence and frequency of reported problems in the domains of usual activities, pain/discomfort and anxiety/depression. [source]

Severity categories of the International Prostate Symptom Score before, and urinary morbidity after, permanent prostate brachytherapy

Trauma Center Utilization for Children in California 1998,2004: Trends and Areas for Further Analysis

ACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE, Issue 4 2007
N. Ewen Wang MD
Abstract Background: While it is known that trauma systems improve the outcome of injury in children, there is a paucity of information regarding trauma system function amid changes in policies and health care financing that affect emergency medical systems for children. Objectives: To describe the trends in the proportion of pediatric trauma patients acutely hospitalized in trauma-designated versus non,trauma-designated hospitals. Methods: This was a retrospective observational study of a population-based cohort obtained by secondary analysis of a publicly available data set: the California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development Patient Discharge Database from 1998 to 2004. Patients were included in the analysis if they were 0,19 years old, had International Classification of Disease, Ninth Revision (ICD-9) diagnostic codes and E-codes indicative of trauma, had an unscheduled admission, and were discharged from a general acute care hospital (N= 111,566). Proportions of patients hospitalized in trauma-designated hospitals versus non,trauma-designated hospitals were calculated for Injury Severity Score and death. Injury Severity Scores were calculated from ICD-9 codes. Primary outcomes were hospitalization in a trauma center and death two or more days after hospitalization. Results: Over the study period, the proportion of children aged 0,14 years with acute trauma requiring hospitalization and who were cared for in trauma-designated hospitals increased from 55% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 54% to 56%) in 1998 to 66% (95% CI = 65% to 67%) in 2004 (p < 0.01). For children aged 15,19 years, the proportion increased from 55% (95% CI = 54% to 57%) in 1998 to 74% (95% CI = 72% to 75%) in 2004 (p < 0.0001). When trauma discharges were stratified by injury severity, the proportion of children with severe injury who were hospitalized in trauma-designated hospitals increased from 69% (95% CI = 66% to 72%) in 1998 to 84% (95% CI = 82% to 87%) in 2004, a rate higher than in children with moderate injury (59% [95% CI = 58% to 61%] in 1998 and 75% [95% CI = 74% to 76%] in 2004) and mild injury (51% [95% CI = 50% to 52%] in 1998 and 63% [95% CI = 62% to 64%] in 2004) (p < 0.0001 for each injury severity category and both age groups). Of the hospitalized children who died two or more days after injury (n= 502), 18.1% died in non,trauma-designated hospitals (p < 0.002 for children aged 0,14 years; p = 0.346 for children aged 15,19 years). Conclusions: An increasing majority of children with trauma were cared for in trauma-designated hospitals over the study period. However, 23% of children with severe injuries, and 18.1% of pediatric deaths more than two days after injury, were cared for in non,trauma-designated hospitals. These findings demonstrate an important opportunity for improvement. If we can characterize those children who do not access the trauma system despite severe injury or death, we will be able to design clinical protocols and implement policies that ensure access to appropriate regional trauma care for all children in need. [source]