Journal of neurosurgery
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Journal of neurosurgery · Jan 2019
Validation of a neurovascular comorbidities index for retrospective database analysis.
Comorbidities have a significant effect on patient outcomes. Accounting for this effect is especially important in retrospective reviews of large databases; overpowered studies are at risk for finding significant results because of inaccurate patient risk stratification. The authors previously created a neurovascular comorbidities index (NCI) for patients with an unruptured intracranial aneurysm and found that the model's ability to predict patient outcomes was statistically significantly improved over that of the routinely used Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) and Elixhauser Comorbidity Index (ECI). In this study, the authors aimed to validate use of the NCI over that of the CCI and ECI for risk stratification of patients with other neurovascular diseases. ⋯ The NCI outperforms the CCI and ECI by providing more appropriate and efficient risk stratification of patients regarding death, outcome, LOS, and cost. Given this finding, the NCI should be used for retrospective reviews of patient outcomes instead of the CCI or ECI.