A New Scoring: Can Brescia-COVID Respiratory Severity Scale Predict Mortality in Intensive Care?

Objective: This study aims to compare the Brescia-coronavirus disease (COVID) severity scale (BCRSS) with acute physiology and chronic health evaluation II (APACHE-II) and sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) scores in terms of predicting mortality in patients with severe coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19).
Material and Methods: BCRSS, SOFA, and APACHE-II scores of patients with severe COVID-19 were calculated when they were first admitted to the intensive care unit. BCRSS score calculation was repeated at the 48th hour. Further treatment, intubation rates, and the result of the intensive care process were recorded and compared.
Results and Conclusion: When the three scoring systems are evaluated as the mortality indicators, SOFA score did not provide a statistically significant difference (p>0.05), whereas the APACHE-II score was found to be significantly higher in the fatal cases (p<0.01). Furthermore,
BCRSS scores at the time of intensive care unit admission and at 48 h were significantly higher in the fatal cases (p<0.01). As much as our experience with the disease has been increasing since the beginning of the pandemic, scoring systems are still used for patient triage area, intubation decisions, and directing the medical treatment. Although BCRSS, one of the COVID-19-specific
scales, is yet to be validated, our results indicate its potential benefit for predicting IC mortality.