[Injury severity score (ISS) in the classification of polytrauma patients]

Differentiated classification of overall severity of a multiple injury is essential to proper assessment of therapeutic success in cases of polytraumatisation. The injury severity score (ISS) is a classification system primarily based on anatomic findings and has proved to be highly practicable and suitable for investigations of larger groups of traumatised patients and their verifiable comparability. Its use is described by examples. The informative potential of the ISS was verified by traumatic patterns and pathological courses of 1,017 patients with injuries from accidents. ISS was found to be well correlated with final courses of diseases, length of treatment and artificial ventilation of survivors as well as with the amount of banked blood required for preoperative management. Effects of age on prognosis are not considered in ISS. Conclusive information on individual prognosis cannot be derived from ISS.