Glasgow Coma Scale Pupils Score

The Glasgow Coma Scale Pupils Score (GCS-P) was described by Paul Brennan, Gordon Murray, and Graham Teasdale in 2018 as a strategy to combine the two key indicators of the severity of traumatic brain injury into a single simple index.

Calculation of the GCS-P is by subtracting the Pupil Reactivity Score (PRS) from the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) total score:

GCS-P = GCS – PRS

The Pupil Reactivity Score is calculated as follows.

Pupils unreactive to light - Pupil Reactivity Score

Both pupils - 2

One pupil - 1

Neither pupil - 0

The GCS-P score can range from 1 and 15 and extends the range over which early severity can be shown to relate to outcomes of either mortality or independent recovery.

The GCS-P is a useful predictor of 30-day mortality, although its usefulness for other clinical outcomes remains to be proven ¹⁾.