Performance of trauma scoring systems in predicting mortality in geriatric trauma patients: comparison of the ISS, TRISS, and GTOS based on a systemic review and meta-analysis

Purpose This meta-analysis aimed to evaluate the performance of the Injury Severity Score (ISS), Trauma and Injury Severity Score (TRISS), and the Geriatric Trauma Outcome Score (GTOS) in predicting mortality in geriatric trauma patients. Methods The MEDLINE, Web of Science, and EMBASE databases were searched for studies published from January 2008 to October 2023. Studies assessing the performance of the ISS, TRISS, or GTOS in predicting mortality in geriatric trauma patients (over 60 years old) and reporting data for the analysis of the pooled area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) and the hierarchical summary receiver operating characteristic curve (HSROC) were included. Studies that were not conducted in a group of geriatric patients, did not consider mortality as the outcome variable, or had incomplete data were excluded. The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) Clinical Prediction Rule Checklist was utilized to assess the risk of bias in included studies. STATA 16.0. was used for the AUROC analysis and HSROC analysis. Results Nineteen studies involving 118,761 geriatric trauma patients were included. The pooled AUROC of the TRISS (AUC = 0.82, 95% CI: 0.77–0.87) was higher than ISS (AUC = 0.74, 95% CI: 0.71–0.79) and GTOS (AUC = 0.80, 95%CI: 0.77–0.83). The diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) calculated from HSROC curves also suggested that the TRISS (DOR = 21.5) had a better performance in predicting mortality in geriatric trauma patients than the ISS (DOR = 6.27) and GTOS (DOR = 4.76). Conclusion This meta-analysis suggested that the TRISS showed better accuracy and performance in predicting mortality in geriatric trauma patients than the ISS and GTOS.