"DECAF Score Predicts COPD Exacerbation Mortality, But Needs Validation"
Pulm CCM - Dec 11 2012 - By Brett Ley, MD
Pulm CCM - Dec 11 2012 - By Brett Ley, MD
"Despite improvements in care, death during hospitalization for acute exacerbation of COPD (AECOPD) is not uncommon. In the UK in 2008, almost 1 in 12 people admitted with a COPD exacerbation died in-hospital. In the U.S. in 1996, about 1 in 40 people hospitalized with COPD exacerbations died, possibly reflecting a different threshold for hospital admission between the countries.
Identifying upon admission those at higher risk of dying in the hospital could be useful for triaging patients to the appropriate level of care, determining aggressiveness of therapies, guiding goals-of-care discussions, and timing safe discharges. To address this need, John Steer, John Gibson, and Stephen Bourke derived the DECAF score—Dyspnea, Eosinopenia, Consolidation, Acidemia, and atrial Fibrillation—to predict in-hospital mortality in a prospectively enrolled community-base cohort of patients admitted to the hospital with acute COPD exacerbations in the UK."
Identifying upon admission those at higher risk of dying in the hospital could be useful for triaging patients to the appropriate level of care, determining aggressiveness of therapies, guiding goals-of-care discussions, and timing safe discharges. To address this need, John Steer, John Gibson, and Stephen Bourke derived the DECAF score—Dyspnea, Eosinopenia, Consolidation, Acidemia, and atrial Fibrillation—to predict in-hospital mortality in a prospectively enrolled community-base cohort of patients admitted to the hospital with acute COPD exacerbations in the UK."