SOFA and APACHE II scoring systems for predicting outcome of neurological patients admitted in a tertiary hospital intensive care unit

BACKGROUND: The field of neurology encompasses the study and treatment of disorders that affect the nervous system, and patients with neurological conditions often require specialized care, particularly in the ICU.

Predictive scoring systems are measures of disease severity used to predict patient outcomes.

The aim of this study was to compare the discriminative power of commonly used scoring systems, namely the sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) and acute physiology and chronic health evaluation II (APACHE II) in the ICU of a tertiary care hospital.

METHODS: This retrospective study included patients with neurological disorders in the ICUs of Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital from 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2022.

RESULTS: A total of 153 patients were included.

The mean age of the patients was 54.76 ± 17.32 years with higher male predominance (60.78%).

Ischaemic stroke was the most common neurological disorder.

There were 58 patients (37.9%) who required mechanical ventilation and all-cause mortality was 20.9%.

The mean SOFA score was significantly higher (P=0.002) in survivors, whereas the mean APACHE II did not show a significant difference (P=0.238).

Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis showed the area of curve (AUC) of SOFA score was 0.765 and of APACHE II was 0.722.

CONCLUSIONS: SOFA score had comparatively higher discriminative power than APACHE II.

Assessment of the performance of scoring systems in a specific ICU setting improves the sensitivity and applicability of the model to these settings.