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SAPS 3 admission score: an external validation in a general intensive care population

Intensive Care Medicine volume 34, Article number: 1873 (2008) Cite this article

Abstract

Objectives

To validate the SAPS 3 admission score in an independent general intensive care case mix and to compare its performances with the APACHE II and the SAPS II scores.

Design

Cohort observational study.

Setting

A 26-bed general ICU from a Tertiary University Hospital.

Patients and participants

Eight hundred and fifty-one consecutive patients admitted to the ICU over an 8-month period. Of these patients, 49 were readmissions, leaving 802 patients for further analysis.

Intervention

None.

Measurements and results

APACHE II, SAPS II and SAPS 3 variables were prospectively collected; scores and their derived probability of death were calculated according to their original manuscript description. The discriminative power was assessed using the area under the ROC curve (AUROC) and calibration was verified with the Hosmer–Lemeshow goodness-of-fit test. The AUROC of the APACHE II model (AUROC = 0.823) was significantly lower than those of the SAPS II (AUROC = 0.850) and SAPS 3 models (AUROC = 0.854) (P = 0.038). The calibration of the APACHE II model (P = 0.037) and of the SAPS 3 global model (P = 0.035) appeared unsatisfactory. On the contrary, both SAPS II model and SAPS 3 model customised for Central and Western Europe had a good calibration. However, in our study case mix, SAPS II model tended to overestimate the probability of death.

Conclusion

In this study, the SAPS 3 admission score and its prediction model customised for Central and Western Europe was more discriminative and better calibrated than APACHE II, but it was not significantly better than the SAPS II.

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Affiliations

  1. Soins Intensifs Généraux, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Liège, Domaine Universitaire de Sart Tilman Bat B35, 4000, Liège, Belgium

    Didier Ledoux, Jean-Luc Canivet, Jean-Charles Preiser, Joëlle Lefrancq & Pierre Damas

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  1. Didier Ledoux
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  2. Jean-Luc Canivet
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  3. Jean-Charles Preiser
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  4. Joëlle Lefrancq
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  5. Pierre Damas
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Correspondence to Didier Ledoux.

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Ledoux, D., Canivet, JL., Preiser, JC. et al. SAPS 3 admission score: an external validation in a general intensive care population. Intensive Care Med 34, 1873 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00134-008-1187-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00134-008-1187-4

Keywords

  • Severity of illness index
  • SAPS 3
  • APACHE
  • Outcome assessment
  • Critical care