• Shannon N Acker, Brianne Hall, Lauren Hill, David A Partrick, and Denis D Bensard.
• Department of General Surgery, University of Colorado, Aurora, Colorado, United States.
• Eur J Pediatr Surg. 2017 Feb 1; 27 (1): 32-35.

AbstractIntroduction In the adult population, assessment of blood consumption (ABC) score [penetrating mechanism, positive focused assessment sonography for trauma (FAST), systolic blood pressure < 90, and heart rate (HR) > 120] ≥2 identifies trauma patients who require massive transfusion (MT) with sensitivity and specificity of 75 and 86%. We hypothesized that the adult criteria cannot be applied to children, as the vital sign cut-offs are not age-adjusted. We aimed to determine if the use of a shock index, pediatric age-adjusted (SIPA) would improve the discriminate ability of the ABC score in children. Materials and Methods A retrospective review of children age 4 to 15 who received a packed red blood cell (PRBC) transfusion during admission for trauma between 2008 and 2014 was performed. We compared the sensitivity and specificity of ABC score ≥ 2, elevated SIPA, and age-adjusted ABC score (ABC-S) utilizing SIPA in place of HR and BP, to determine the need for MT. Results A total of 50 children were included, 31 received PRBC transfusion within 6 hours of injury, 7 children had a positive FAST, and 3 suffered penetrating trauma, all in the early transfusion group. ABC score ≥ 2 is 29% sensitive and 100% specific at predicting need for MT while ABC-S score ≥ 1 is 65% sensitive and 84% specific. Conclusions Adult-based criteria for activation of MT perform poorly in the pediatric population. The use of SIPA modestly improves the sensitivity of the ABC score in children; however, the sensitivity and specificity of this score are still worse than when used in an adult population. This suggests the need to develop a new score that takes into account the low rate of penetrating trauma and positive FAST in the pediatric population.Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

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