Performance of PRISM III, PELOD-2, and P-MODS Scores in Two Pediatric Intensive Care Units in China

Objective: The performances of the pediatric risk of mortality score III (PRISM III), pediatric logistic organ dysfunction score-2 (PELOD-2), and pediatric multiple organ dysfunction score (P-MODS) in Chinese patients are unclear. This study aimed to assess the performances of these scores in predicting mortality in critically ill pediatric patients. Methods: This retrospective observational study was conducted at two tertiary-care PICUs of teaching hospitals in China. A total of 1,253 critically ill pediatric patients admitted to the two Pediatric Intensive Care Units (PICUs) of the First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University from August 2014 to December 2019 and Shen-Zhen Children's Hospital from January 2019 to December 2019 were analyzed. The indexes of discrimination and calibration were applied to evaluate score performance for the three models (PRISM III, PELOD-2, and P-MODS scores). The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was plotted, and the efficiency of PRISM III, PELOD-2, and P-MODS in predicting death were evaluated by the area under ROC curve (AUC). Hosmer–Lemeshow goodness-of-fit test was used to evaluate the degree of fitting between the mortality predictions of each scoring system and the actual mortality. Results: A total of 1,253 pediatric patients were eventually enrolled in this study (median age, 38 months; overall mortality rate, 8.9%; median length of PICU stay, 8 days). Compared to the survival group, the non-survival group showed significantly higher PRISM III, PELOD-2, and P-MODS scores [PRISM III: 18 (12, 23) vs. 11 (0, 16); PELOD-2, 8 (4, 10) vs. 4 (0, 6); and P-MODS: 5 (4, 9) vs. 3 (0, 4), all P < 0.001]. ROC curve analysis showed that the AUCs of PRISM III, PELOD-2, and P-MODS for predicting the death of critically ill children were 0.858, 0.721, and 0.596, respectively. Furthermore, in the Hosmer–Lemeshow goodness-of-fit test, PRISM III and PELOD-2 showed the better calibration between predicted mortality and observed mortality (PRISM III: χ(2) = 5.667, P = 0.368; PELOD-2: χ(2) = 9.582, P = 0.276; P-MODS: χ(2) = 12.449, P = 0.015). Conclusions: PRISM III and PELOD-2 can discriminate well between survivors and non-survivors. PRISM III and PELOD-2 showed the better calibration between predicted and observed mortality, while P-MODS showed poor calibration.