History
Early efforts to create an organized system for describing and grading traumatic organ injuries included.
- Abbreviated Injury Scale - developed in 1971 in collaboration with the automotive industry to improve vehicle safety, as well as the
- Injury Severity Score - developed in 1974, first to predict survival
- Abdominal Trauma Index - developed in 1981, updated for blunt trauma in 1990, organ-specific injury grading, estimating morbidity/mortality
In the late 1980s, the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST) formed an Organ Injury Scale (OIS) committee including trauma, orthopedic surgery, urology, and neurosurgery specialists in order to create a more comprehensive classification. The first AAST OIS guidelines published in 1989 classified injuries of the spleen, liver, and kidney.
In the contemporary time, according to statistics, trauma is the leading cause of fatal injuries for aged 1–44 years old.
The American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST) injury scoring scales are the most widely accepted and used system of classifying and categorizing traumatic injuries and it provides criteria for grading solid organ damage into three groups: imaging, operation, and pathology. Injury grade reflects severity, guides management, and aids in prognosis.
The most commonly used injury scoring grades are for the solid viscera:
Multidetector CT is the reference standard for depicting abdominal trauma, with sensitivity for detection of visceral organ injury approaching 96%–100% . Intravenous iodinated nonionic contrast agent should be used. Close collaboration between the trauma and radiology teams ensures the best overall imaging evaluation, with the lowest radiation dose and contrast material load.