Abbreviated Injury Score (AIS) for Inhalation Injury

Bronchoscopic Findings

No carbonaceous deposits, erythema, edema, bronchorrhea, or obstruction Minor or patchy areas of erythema, carbonaceous deposits, bronchorrhea, or bronchial obstruction present Moderate erythema, carbonaceous deposits, bronchorrhea, or bronchial obstruction present Severe inflammation with friability, copious carbonaceous deposits, bronchorrhea, or obstruction present Mucosal sloughing, necrosis, or endoluminal obstruction present

Results

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1 What is Inhalation Injury?
2 How to Use This Calculator
3 Formula Used
4 Variables Explained
5 Worked Example
6 Why Use This Calculator?
7 Common Mistakes
8 Frequently Asked Questions
9 Sources & References
10 Related Calculators

What is Inhalation Injury?

This calculator maps a selected bronchoscopic finding to an inhalation-injury grade from zero through four. It is a category lookup, not a numerical equation. The grades summarize visible airway injury described during bronchoscopy after suspected smoke inhalation.

The page’s name can be confusing because AIS is also used for a broader trauma injury-classification system. Here the relevant context is the five-level bronchoscopic inhalation-injury grading scheme. Do not assume that its zero-to-four airway grades are interchangeable with every other trauma score bearing the initials AIS.

How to Use This Calculator

Use a documented bronchoscopic assessment interpreted by an appropriately qualified clinician. Read all five descriptions and select the category matching those findings. The form starts with its first category selected, so the initial choice should not be treated as a finding obtained from an examination.

Choose Calculate to display the grade and severity wording. The backend maps one selected category to one grade. It does not accept several findings independently, add points or process a bronchoscopy image.

Do not select a category based only on coughing, soot on the face or how a person feels. The input refers to observations inside the airway. If the documented findings do not clearly match a category, the calculator cannot resolve that uncertainty. Clinical review of the actual examination is needed.

Formula Used

Category lookup: no listed airway changes → grade 0; minor or patchy changes → grade 1; moderate changes → grade 2; severe inflammation and related changes → grade 3; mucosal sloughing, necrosis or endoluminal obstruction → grade 4. No arithmetic sum is performed.

Variables Explained

Input	Unit or choice	Meaning
Bronchoscopic Findings	One category	Documented airway findings classified into grade0–4.

The input is one description of Bronchoscopic Findings. Terms in the choices describe airway observations: carbonaceous deposits concern soot-like material, erythema concerns redness, edema concerns swelling, and bronchorrhea concerns secretions. Their severity and extent are part of the examining clinician’s assessment.

The options progress from no qualifying findings, through minor and moderate changes, to severe inflammation and major tissue injury. Friability describes tissue that is easily damaged. Sloughing and necrosis indicate categories of tissue damage used in the highest listed grade.

The grade is an ordinal category. Grade four is higher than grade two, but it is not a mathematical statement that injury is exactly twice as severe. Similarly, moving from grade one to two is not a fixed numerical change in a measured physiological quantity.

Worked Example

For a teaching example, suppose the bronchoscopy report is categorized as minor or patchy erythema with deposits. Selecting the second option returns grade 1 and the page’s minor-injury wording. There is no need to add separate points for both redness and deposits.

If a report is instead classified in the category describing severe inflammation with friability and copious deposits or obstruction, the fourth option returns grade 3. The grade follows the selected category rather than the number of individual descriptors mentioned.

The fifth option describes major tissue damage such as mucosal sloughing or necrosis and maps to grade 4. A first-option selection maps to grade 0. These examples demonstrate the lookup mechanism; they do not provide instructions for grading an airway without the clinical examination.

Why Use This Calculator?

Use the output to communicate which category was selected and to check that the category-to-grade mapping is understood. Retain the original bronchoscopy report, examination timing and clinical assessment. A single grade cannot preserve the complete description of the airway or its course over time.

The current result panel also contains fixed survival percentages. Those figures are not individualized predictions and should not be used to counsel a patient about a personal chance of survival. The form has no age, burn-size, comorbidity, physiological or treatment inputs from which to establish such a prediction.

Primary studies have reported differing relationships between bronchoscopic grades and outcomes. One study of 160 ventilated burn patients did not find significant mortality differences between individual grades. That reinforces the need to separate a descriptive airway grade from a dependable individual prognosis. A complete clinical assessment remains necessary.

Common Mistakes

Do not use the grade to exclude every consequence of smoke exposure. This page does not take carbon monoxide measurements, oxygenation results or an assessment of other injuries. It does not evaluate whether an airway intervention is required.

Do not add the five category numbers together. Do not select the most alarming word from an informal account and assume it establishes a grade. Avoid treating the result’s survival field as a validated risk model. The form is particularly unsuitable for self-triage after a current exposure because the necessary input is a specialist examination finding.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this the same as the Injury Severity Score?

No. This page maps bronchoscopic findings to an inhalation-injury grade. Injury Severity Score uses a different trauma-scoring framework. Similar abbreviations do not make their values interchangeable.

Can I select several airway findings separately?

The form permits one category selection, and the backend returns that category’s mapped grade. It does not score individual findings independently. Use the documented clinical classification when several findings are present.

Does grade zero mean smoke exposure was harmless?

No. It means the selected category contains no listed bronchoscopic injury findings. The tool does not assess other exposure effects or establish that no further evaluation is needed.

Why should the survival percentage be treated cautiously?

It is a fixed label returned for the selected category. There are no other prognostic inputs, and evidence does not establish one universal survival percentage for each individual grade. It should not be read as a personal forecast.

Can I use symptoms instead of a bronchoscopy report?

No. The choices describe bronchoscopic observations. Symptoms alone do not supply those observations. Suspected acute inhalation injury requires clinical assessment rather than guessing a category to complete an online form.