AAST-BCI

Q: Heart Injury Scale from American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST) is divided into how many grades? (select one)

A) Two

B) Three

C) Four

D) Five

E) Six

Answer: E

The Heart Injury Scale from the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST) divides Blunt Cardiac Injury (BCI) into six grades. The main feature of each grade are

• I - minor ECG abnormality 
• II - heart block or ischemic changes without cardiac failure
• III - sustained or multifocal ventricular contractions
• IV - septal rupture, pulmonary or tricuspid incompetence, papillary muscle dysfunction, or distal coronary artery occlusion producing cardiac failure
• V - proximal coronary artery occlusion
• VI   - Penetrating wound producing >50% tissue loss of a chamber

Please refer to https://www.aast.org/resources-detail/injury-scoring-scale (Table 3) for details of scoring

#trauma

Reference:

Moore EE, Malangoni MA, Cogbill TH, et al. Organ injury scaling. IV: Thoracic vascular, lung, cardiac, and diaphragm. J Trauma 1994; 36:299.