Evaluating Mortality Risk Adjustment Among Children Receiving Extracorporeal Support for Respiratory Failure

This study evaluates whether three commonly used pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) severity of illness scores, pediatric risk of mortality score (PRISM) III, pediatric index of mortality (PIM) 2, and pediatric logistic organ dysfunction (PELOD), are the appropriate tools to discriminate mortality risk in children receiving extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) support for respiratory failure. This study also evaluates the ability of the Pediatric Risk Estimate Score for Children Using Extracorporeal Respiratory Support (Ped-RESCUERS) to discriminate mortality risk in the same population, and whether Ped-RESCUERS' discrimination of mortality is improved by additional clinical and laboratory measures of renal, hepatic, neurologic, and hematologic dysfunction. A multi-institutional retrospective cohort study was conducted on children aged 29 days to 17 years with respiratory failure requiring respiratory ECMO support. Discrimination of mortality was evaluated with the area under the receiver operating curve (AUC); model calibration was measured by the Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness of fit test and Brier score. Admission PRISM-III, PIM-2, and PELOD were found to have poor ability to discriminate mortality with an AUC of 0.56 [0.46-0.66], 0.53 [0.43-0.62], and 0.57 [0.47-0.67], respectively. Alternatively, Ped-RESCUERS performed better with an AUC of 0.68 [0.59-0.77]. Higher alanine aminotransferase, ratio of the arterial partial pressure of oxygen the fraction of inspired oxygen, and lactic acidosis were independently associated with mortality and, when added to Ped-RESCUERS, resulted in an AUC of 0.75 [0.66-0.82]. Admission PRISM-III, PIM-2, and PELOD should not be used for pre-ECMO risk adjustment because they do not discriminate death. Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation population-derived scores should be used to risk adjust ECMO populations as opposed to general PICU population-derived scores.