Can ionized calcium levels and platelet counts used for estimating the prognosis of pediatric trauma patients admitted to the emergency surgery intensive care?

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Injury is the leading cause of death for pediatric population older than 1 year of age and 95% of those deaths are from the low-and middle-income countries. Most of those injured pediatric patients are treated in general hospitals. In designated trauma centers, the outcomes of severely injured patients are better. Scoring systems used frequently in intensive care units (ICUs) to make triage easier and to estimate prognosis. However, some of the scores may require additional expensive and sometimes time consuming tests. The purpose of the present study was to compare the usefulness of several scoring systems with initial ionized calcium levels and platelet counts to predict prognosis of pediatric trauma patients admitted to the emergency surgery department.