Risk Stratification

Acute radiation syndrome system

The acute radiation syndrome (ARS) system is used by the British Institute of Radiology. It grades involvement of four specific systems with scores from 1-4:

• Neurovascular (N)
• Haematological (H)
• Cutaneous (C)
• Gastrointestinal (G)

A grading code is then generated with a severity index ‘i’. This grading code can be used to generate a response category (RC) and is specific to a time point. For example: ‘3d’ is day 3. The RC is used to guide further examinations and investigation and the likelihood of recovery.

There are also computer-assisted models that can predict exposure risk. Another early indictor of the severity of exposure is the lymphocyte count after 12 hours.