Citation

Oren W, Yonathan W, Adi G, Irina R, Kobi P, Demetris S, Josef H, Ariel T. J. Burn Care Res. 2017; 38(6): e906-e912.

Affiliation

From the *Israeli Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons Fellowship Program, Tel Aviv, Israel; †Burn Unit, Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Sheba Medical Center, Ramat Gan, Israel; ‡National Center for Trauma and Emergency Medicine Research, Gertner Institute for Epidemiology and Health Policy Research, Tel Hashomer, Israel; §Disaster Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Israel; ‖St. George's, University of London/Medical School at the University of Nicosia, Cyprus; and ¶Talpiot Medical Leadership Program, Sheba Medical Center, Ramat Gan, Israel.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, American Burn Association, Publisher Lippincott Williams and Wilkins)

DOI

10.1097/BCR.0000000000000519

PMID

28319531

Abstract

Patients with extensive burn injuries suffer from multisystem trauma, which affects their medical, psychological, and social well-being for many years. Monitoring those patients has revealed changes in the endocrine, cardiac, and respiratory systems years after the injury. Our study tries to examine whether changes manifest as a higher risk of death during their lifespan, compared with the general population. Data from the years 1998 to 2013 regarding two groups of patients was obtained from a national trauma registry: one group had suffered burns over 20% of their TBSA and survived the hospitalization period and the second group was a control group of patients admitted with minimal trauma (Injury Severity Score = 1-minor injury to a single body region). Mortality rates during the posthospitalization period were compared after adjusting for age and follow-up periods. The authors collected 1115 second- or third-degree burn victims with 20% TBSA and 81,688 trauma victims with an Injury Severity Score = 1. Follow-up periods ranged from 8 months to almost 17 years. When comparing the groups after correcting for age, sex, and follow-up period, no significant differences in mortality risk were found. Possible explanations for the lack of differences in mortality risk include the lack of an adequate follow-up period, a misguided research hypothesis (ie, despite existence of physiological changes in burn patients, these changes do not affect the lifespan), or a control group that does not optimally represent mortality in the general population.

Language: en