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AIS & ISS Resources

The Injury Severity Score (ISS) is an anatomical scoring system that provides an overall score for patients with multiple injuries.

The ISS is based on an anatomical injury severity classification, the AIS or Abbreviated Injury Scale . The AIS classifies individual injuries by body region on a 6 point severity scale as follows:
• AIS 1 – Minor
• AIS 2 – Moderate
• AIS 3 – Serious
• AIS 4 – Severe
• AIS 5 – Critical
• AIS 6 – Maximum (currently untreatable injury)

The AIS version currently used in New South Wales is the AIS 1990 Update, '98 Revision, however from 1st July 2007 New South Wales will use the AIS 2005 version. Information about updates and changes to the AIS 2005 version are available at http://www.aaam1.org/ais/ais_update.php

The Injury Severity Score (ISS) is the sum of the squares of the highest AIS code in each of the three most severely injured ISS body regions. These body regions are:
• Head or neck
• Face
• Chest
• Abdominal or pelvic contents
• Extremities or pelvic girdle
• External

Injury Severity Scores range from 1 to 75. If an injury is assigned an AIS (Abbreviated Injury Score) of 6 (currently untreatable injury), the ISS score is automatically assigned 75.

The ISS score is an internationally recognised anatomical scoring system which correlates linearly with mortality, morbidity and other measures of severity.