The Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) predicts the mortality for a patient who may have a range of concurrent conditions (comorbidities), such as heart disease, AIDS, or cancer (considering a total of 17 categories).
A score of zero means that no comorbidities were found; the higher the score, the higher the predicted mortality rate and the lower the predicted ten-year survival.
It is helpful in deciding how aggressively to treat a condition.
It is one of the most widely used scoring system for comorbidities.
Each condition is assigned a score of 1, 2, 3, or 6, depending on the risk of dying associated with each one.
Clinical conditions and associated scores are as follows:
1 each: Myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, peripheral vascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, dementia, chronic pulmonary disease, rheumatologic disease, peptic ulcer disease, liver disease, if mild, or 3 if moderate/severe, diabetes if controlled, or 2 if uncontrolled.
2 each: Hemiplegia or paraplegia, renal disease, malignancy if localized, or 6 if metastatic tumor, leukemia, lymphoma
6 each: AIDS
Patients who are 50 years old or more get additional points:
50-59 years old: +1 point 60-69 years old: +2 points 70-79 years old: +3 points 80 years old or more: +4 points
Scores are summed to provide a total score to predict mortality.
Currently 17 categories are considered in the popular Charlson/Deyo variant,instead of 19 in the original score.
For a physician, this score is helpful in deciding how aggressively to treat a condition.
Abpatient may have cancer with comorbid heart disease and diabetes.
These comorbidities may be so severe that the costs and risks of cancer treatment would outweigh its short-term benefit.
The Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) is a validated, weighted scoring system used to quantify a patient’s overall comorbidity burden and predict mortality risk based on the presence and severity of specific chronic diseases.
The CCI was originally developed to predict 1-year mortality in hospitalized patients by assigning weights to a set of comorbid conditions according to their association with mortality risk.
The index includes 16–19 major comorbidities (such as myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, diabetes, chronic pulmonary disease, and malignancy), each assigned a score from 1 to 6 based on its impact on survival.
The total CCI score is the sum of these weights, with higher scores indicating greater comorbidity and higher risk of mortality.
The index is frequently used to stratify patients by comorbidity burden and to adjust for confounding in studies of outcomes such as mortality, disability, and resource utilization.