Nomogram for predicting in-hospital mortality in trauma patients undergoing resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta: a retrospective multicenter study

Abstract

Recently, resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta (REBOA) had been introduced as an innovative procedure for severe hemorrhage in the abdomen or pelvis. We aimed to investigate risk factors associated with mortality after REBOA and construct a model for predicting mortality. This multicenter retrospective study collected data from 251 patients admitted at five regional trauma centers across South Korea from 2015 to 2022. The indications for REBOA included patients experiencing hypovolemic shock due to hemorrhage in the abdomen, pelvis, or lower extremities, and those who were non-responders (systolic blood pressure (SBP) < 90 mmHg) to initial fluid treatment. The primary and secondary outcomes were mortality due to exsanguination and overall mortality, respectively. After feature selection using the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) logistic regression model to minimize overfitting, a multivariate logistic regression (MLR) model and nomogram were constructed. In the MLR model using risk factors selected in the LASSO, five risk factors, including initial heart rate (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.99; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.98-1.00; p = 0.030), initial Glasgow coma scale (aOR, 0.86; 95% CI 0.80-0.93; p < 0.001), RBC transfusion within 4 h (unit, aOR, 1.12; 95% CI 1.07-1.17; p < 0.001), balloon occlusion type (reference: partial occlusion; total occlusion, aOR, 2.53; 95% CI 1.27-5.02; p = 0.008; partial + total occlusion, aOR, 2.04; 95% CI 0.71-5.86; p = 0.187), and post-REBOA systolic blood pressure (SBP) (aOR, 0.98; 95% CI 0.97-0.99; p < 0.001) were significantly associated with mortality due to exsanguination. The prediction model showed an area under curve, sensitivity, and specificity of 0.855, 73.2%, and 83.6%, respectively. Decision curve analysis showed that the predictive model had increased net benefits across a wide range of threshold probabilities. This study developed a novel intuitive nomogram for predicting mortality in patients undergoing REBOA. Our proposed model exhibited excellent performance and revealed that total occlusion was associated with poor outcomes, with post-REBOA SBP potentially being an effective surrogate measure.

Keywords: Hemorrhage; Injuries; Resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of aorta; Trauma.