In medicine, the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) predicts the mortality for a patient who may have a range of concurrent conditions (comorbidities), such as heart disease, AIDS, or cancer (considering a total of 17 categories). [1] A score of zero means that no comorbidities were found; the higher the score, the higher the predicted mortality rate is. [2] [3] For a physician, this score is helpful in deciding how aggressively to treat a condition.
It is one of the most widely used scoring system for comorbidities. [4] The index was developed by Mary Charlson and colleagues in 1987, but the methodology has been adapted several times since then based on the findings of additional studies. [5] Many variations of the Charlson comorbidity index have been presented, including the Charlson/Deyo, Charlson/Romano, Charlson/Manitoba, and Charlson/D'Hoores comorbidity indices.
Each condition is assigned a score of 1, 2, 3, or 6, depending on the risk of dying associated with each one. Clinical conditions and associated scores are as follows:
Patients who are 50 years old or more get additional points: [6]
Scores are summed to provide a total score to predict mortality.
Currently 17 categories are considered in the popular Charlson/Deyo variant, [7] instead of 19 in the original score. [8] The weights were also adapted in 2003. [9]
Conditions can be identified using the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) diagnosis codes commonly used in patient records.
For a physician, this score is helpful in deciding how aggressively to treat a condition. For example, a patient may have cancer with comorbid heart disease and diabetes. These comorbidities may be so severe that the costs and risks of cancer treatment would outweigh its short-term benefit.
Since patients often do not know how severe their conditions are, nurses were originally supposed to review a patient's chart and determine whether a particular condition was present in order to calculate the index. Subsequent studies have adapted the comorbidity index into a questionnaire for patients.
The Charlson index, especially the Charlson/Deyo, followed by the Elixhauser have been most commonly referred by the comparative studies of comorbidity and multimorbidity measures. [10]
The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is a globally used medical classification used in epidemiology, health management and for clinical purposes. The ICD is maintained by the World Health Organization (WHO), which is the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations System. The ICD is originally designed as a health care classification system, providing a system of diagnostic codes for classifying diseases, including nuanced classifications of a wide variety of signs, symptoms, abnormal findings, complaints, social circumstances, and external causes of injury or disease. This system is designed to map health conditions to corresponding generic categories together with specific variations, assigning for these a designated code, up to six characters long. Thus, major categories are designed to include a set of similar diseases.
Thrombosis is the formation of a blood clot inside a blood vessel, obstructing the flow of blood through the circulatory system. When a blood vessel is injured, the body uses platelets (thrombocytes) and fibrin to form a blood clot to prevent blood loss. Even when a blood vessel is not injured, blood clots may form in the body under certain conditions. A clot, or a piece of the clot, that breaks free and begins to travel around the body is known as an embolus.
In medicine, comorbidity refers to the simultaneous presence of two or more medical conditions in a patient; often co-occurring with a primary condition. It originates from the Latin term morbus prefixed with co- ("together") and suffixed with -ity. Comorbidity includes all additional ailments a patient may experience alongside their primary diagnosis, which can be either physiological or psychological in nature. In the context of mental health, comorbidity frequently refers to the concurrent existence of mental disorders, for example, the co-occurrence of depressive and anxiety disorders. The concept of multimorbidity is related to comorbidity but is different in its definition and approach, focusing on the presence of multiple diseases or conditions in a patient without the need to specify one as primary.
Hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (HSCT) is the transplantation of multipotent hematopoietic stem cells, usually derived from bone marrow, peripheral blood, or umbilical cord blood, in order to replicate inside a patient and produce additional normal blood cells. HSCT may be autologous, syngeneic, or allogeneic.
Troponin, or the troponin complex, is a complex of three regulatory proteins that are integral to muscle contraction in skeletal muscle and cardiac muscle, but not smooth muscle. Measurements of cardiac-specific troponins I and T are extensively used as diagnostic and prognostic indicators in the management of myocarditis, myocardial infarction and acute coronary syndrome. Blood troponin levels may be used as a diagnostic marker for stroke or other myocardial injury that is ongoing, although the sensitivity of this measurement is low.
Prognosis is a medical term for predicting the likelihood or expected development of a disease, including whether the signs and symptoms will improve or worsen or remain stable over time; expectations of quality of life, such as the ability to carry out daily activities; the potential for complications and associated health issues; and the likelihood of survival. A prognosis is made on the basis of the normal course of the diagnosed disease, the individual's physical and mental condition, the available treatments, and additional factors. A complete prognosis includes the expected duration, function, and description of the course of the disease, such as progressive decline, intermittent crisis, or sudden, unpredictable crisis.
Gastritis is the inflammation of the lining of the stomach. It may occur as a short episode or may be of a long duration. There may be no symptoms but, when symptoms are present, the most common is upper abdominal pain. Other possible symptoms include nausea and vomiting, bloating, loss of appetite and heartburn. Complications may include stomach bleeding, stomach ulcers, and stomach tumors. When due to autoimmune problems, low red blood cells due to not enough vitamin B12 may occur, a condition known as pernicious anemia.
Acute pancreatitis (AP) is a sudden inflammation of the pancreas. Causes, in order of frequency, include: a gallstone impacted in the common bile duct beyond the point where the pancreatic duct joins it; heavy alcohol use; systemic disease; trauma; and, in children, mumps. Acute pancreatitis may be a single event; it may be recurrent; or it may progress to chronic pancreatitis and/or pancreatic failure.
Sarcopenia is a type of muscle loss that occurs with aging and/or immobility. It is characterized by the degenerative loss of skeletal muscle mass, quality, and strength. The rate of muscle loss is dependent on exercise level, co-morbidities, nutrition and other factors. The muscle loss is related to changes in muscle synthesis signalling pathways. It is distinct from cachexia, in which muscle is degraded through cytokine-mediated degradation, although the two conditions may co-exist. Sarcopenia is considered a component of frailty syndrome. Sarcopenia can lead to reduced quality of life, falls, fracture, and disability.
Frailty is a common and clinically significant grouping of symptoms that occurs in aging and older adults. These symptoms can include decreased physical abilities such as walking, excessive fatigue, and weight and muscle loss leading to declined physical status. In addition, frailty encompasses a decline in both overall physical function and physiologic reserve of organ systems resulting in worse health outcomes for this population. This syndrome is associated with increased risk of heart disease, falls, hospitalization, and death. In addition, it has been shown that adults living with frailty face more anxiety and depression symptoms than those who do not.
Febrile neutropenia is the development of fever, often with other signs of infection, in a patient with neutropenia, an abnormally low number of neutrophil granulocytes in the blood. It is an oncologic emergency, and is the most common serious complication in patients with hematopoietic cancers or receiving chemotherapy for cancer. The term neutropenic sepsis is also applied, although it tends to be reserved for patients who are less well. In 50% of cases, an infection is detectable; bacteremia is present in approximately 20% of all patients with this condition.
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is retrosternal chest pain or discomfort that classically radiates to the left shoulder, arm, or jaw. The pain may occasionally feel like heartburn.
Obesity is a risk factor for many chronic physical and mental illnesses.
The Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project is a family of healthcare databases and related software tools and products from the United States that is developed through a Federal-State-Industry partnership and sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
The ICD-11 is the eleventh revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). It replaces the ICD-10 as the global standard for recording health information and causes of death. The ICD is developed and annually updated by the World Health Organization (WHO). Development of the ICD-11 started in 2007 and spanned over a decade of work, involving over 300 specialists from 55 countries divided into 30 work groups, with an additional 10,000 proposals from people all over the world. Following an alpha version in May 2011 and a beta draft in May 2012, a stable version of the ICD-11 was released on 18 June 2018, and officially endorsed by all WHO members during the 72nd World Health Assembly on 25 May 2019.
A wearable cardioverter defibrillator (WCD) is a non-invasive, external device for patients at risk of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). It allows physicians time to assess their patient's arrhythmic risk and see if their ejection fraction improves before determining the next steps in patient care. It is a leased device. A summary of the device, its technology and indications was published in 2017 and reviewed by the EHRA Scientific Documents Committee.
James X. Zhang is an American health economist and health services researcher at the University of Chicago known for his innovative approaches in exploring complex data to measure a range of factors influencing healthcare delivery and outcomes.
Emphysema is any air-filled enlargement in the body's tissues. Most commonly emphysema refers to the permanent enlargement of air spaces (alveoli) in the lungs, and is also known as pulmonary emphysema.
In medicine, the Comorbidity–polypharmacy score (CPS) is a measure of overall severity of comorbidities. It is defined as the simple sum of the number of known comorbidities and pre-admission medications taken by the patient (polypharmacy), as a surrogate for the “intensity” of the comorbidities.
In medicine, the Elixhauser Comorbidity Index is a measure of overall severity of comorbidities, predicting hospital length of stay, hospital charges, and in-hospital mortality. The higher the score, the higher the predicted hospital resource use and mortality rate are. For a physician, this score is helpful in deciding how aggressively to treat a condition.