World Federation of Neurological Surgeons (WFNS) Subarachnoid Hemorrhage (SAH) Grading
In 1988, the World Federation of Neurological Surgeons (WFNS) developed a classification scale of patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) using the Glasgow coma scale (GCS) for level of consciousness combined with the presence or absence of focal deficits to determine severity of injury and to predict patient outcomes. [1]
The WFNS is currently used heavily in classifying SAH and predicting outcome; however, recent studies have shown that, while it maintains useful for predicting prognosis, more recently developed scales allow for more even distribution of outcomes across the grading scale. [2, 3, 4, 5]
The WFNS scale is as follows:
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Grade 1: GCS score of 15 without focal deficit
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Grade 2: GCS score of 13 or 14 without focal deficit
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Grade 3: GCS score of 13 or 14 with focal deficit
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Grade 4: GCS score of 7-12
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Grade 5: GCS score of 3-6
