Citation

Miyata S, Haltmeier T, Inaba K, Matsushima K, Goodhue C, Bliss DW. Am. Surg. 2015; 81(10): 927-931.

Affiliation

Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Southeastern Surgical Congress)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

26463282

Abstract

The American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma stratification system for trauma centers presumes that increasing levels of resources will improve patient outcomes. Although some supportive data exist in adult trauma, there is a paucity of evidence demonstrating improved survival in pediatric trauma when patients are treated primarily at Level I versus Level II pediatric trauma centers. We hypothesized that there is no difference in the mortality of comparably injured pediatric patients treated at these two types of facilities. The study population consists of all severely injured pediatric patients (18 years old or younger, injury severity score > 15) registered in the National Trauma Data Bank, treated in designated pediatric trauma centers. A total of 13,803 patients were included in the analysis and were separated into two groups: Pediatric Level I trauma center (n = 9690) and Pediatric Level II trauma center (n = 4113). Although analysis of the clinical characteristics of the unmatched groups showed significant differences including mortality rate (11.7% vs 15.4%, P < 0.001), case matching technique, comparing 2956 pairs, successfully eliminated demographic differences and, when adjusted for injury severity, showed no difference in mortality between center types (10.0% vs 10.1%, P = 0.966, odds ratio of mortality = 0.996 and 95% confidence interval = 0.841-1.180). Subgroup analyses including Glasgow Coma Scale < 9, need for immediate procedures, and ICD-9 (International Classification of Diseases) code groupings indicative of serious injury also failed to demonstrate statistically significant differences in mortality between trauma center types.

Language: en