A New Mortality Score in Preterm Infants: The Vasoactive Inotropic Score

Background: Can vasoactive inotropic score (VIS) be a new mortality score in preterm infants weighing less than 1000 grams? Method:This study was designed as a retrospective study. A total of 280 preterm infants under 1000 grams admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit over a five-year period were included in the study. For each patient, CRIB-II score and VIS were calculated, and their ability to predict mortality was compared. To predict and compare the accuracy of the scoring systems, Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis was used, and the area under the curve (AUC) was calculated. Results: In infants who died within the first 28 days postnatally, CRIB-II Score (p=0.0001) and VISmax (p=0.0001) were higher compared to those who survived. The AUC for CRIB-II and VIS in predicting mortality were 0.86/0.81, with cutoffs of >12/>5, sensitivity 79/70, specificity 82/87, positive predictive value (PPV) 81/85, and negative predictive value 80/75, respectively. There was no statistically significant difference between the AUC values of the CRIB-II Score and VIS variables (p=0.160). Conclusion: VIS can predict mortality in very low birth weight preterm infants as accurately as the CRIB-II score.