The American Association for the Surgery of Trauma grading scale for 16 emergency general surgery conditions: Disease-specific criteria characterizing anatomic severity grading.

Abstract The American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST) Committee on Patient Assessment has previously published a uniform system for describing anatomic severity for Emergency General Surgery (EGS) diseases and applied these to 16 specific EGS disease processes: appendicitis, breast infections, acute cholecystitis, acute diverticulitis of the colon, esophageal perforation, hernias (internal or abdominal wall), infectious colitis, intestinal obstruction, intestinal arterial ischemia of the bowel, acute pancreatitis, pelvic inflammatory disease, perforated peptic ulcer disease, perirectal abscess, pleural space infection, skin and soft tissue infections, and surgical site infections. Standardized definitions of categorizing these diseases will be essential for risk adjustment and comparing patient outcomes among different centers. We now report on the final construct for the data dictionaries including clinical, imaging, operative, and pathologic criteria to correspond with each grade of each EGS disease. The data dictionaries are based on review of the literature, examination of existing grading systems, and discussion with expert consensus. Level V - Expert opinion STUDY TYPE: Current Opinion or Special Report.