The problem of burns

Abstract

Background: Burns due to accidents are a common cause of morbidity and mortality in the Indian sub-continent. The causes being preventive, warrant a better understanding of the epidemiology to know the seriousness of the situation, implement better medical care and prevent such accidents. Aim was to study the morbidity and mortality related to percentage of burns.Methods: This is a retrospective observational study where patients admitted with burns 2013 and 2015 were evaluated. Data with respect to sex, age, percentage of burns, air-way burns, mode and cause of burns, cause of death and length of hospitalization were analyzed.Results: 65.3% of the patients were females and 34.7% males, with a male: female ratio of 0.53:1. A total mortality of 43.71% was seen. Maximum patients belonged to age group 21-40 years which also constituted 28.74% (highest) of the above total mortality. More than 50 % mortality was seen in patients with more than 41% burns. Air way burns were present in 41.31% of the cases; of which 85.51% of cases did not survive. Death due to hypovolemic shock (42.47%) was the main cause of death in the initial 4 days of admission; whereas septicemic shock (57.53%) from the 5th day onward.Conclusions: Morbidity and mortality due to burns is still very high in India, especially in young adults of age groups 21- 40 years. A higher case load for females as seen, being nearly double in in relation to males. Better fluid resuscitation regimens with adequate control of infection is the need of the hour to bring down the mortality. Female sex and more than 41% burns predicts higher mortality. Involvement of the respiratory tract, also predicts higher mortality and may be taken as a reliable indicator of the severity of burns. In the present scenario, we should stress more over the prevention of burns, to easily make available affordable and cheap medical care for the patients and to minimize post burn disability as much as possible.

Medicolegal Aspect Analysis of Burn Cases in Liaquat University Hospital, Hyderabad

“…13) This may be due to fact that males are more exposed to the industrial work and other fire causing activities like smoking.Whereas, our findings are relatively inconsistent to the studies conducted in other south Asian countries that reported female predominance. (14,15) The females are mostly burnt due to household explosions or cooking oil burns. Main reasons are inexperience with cooking, use of risky fire appliances and use of conventional synthetic clothing that catch fire quickly as well as spread it throughout the body of victim.…”

Pattern of burn injury admissions at a teaching hospital of Karnataka, India: a three year retrospective study

“…Similar results are reported from studies conducted in India and abroad. [6][7][8][11][12][13][14] Mean total body surface area (TBSA) was 36.09%. Mean TBSA reported by Jain M et al, was 45.33%, and in Egypt, Hemeda et al, reported mean TBSA 32±5.7% similar to our study.…”