Burns in a major burns center in East China from 2005 to 2014: Incidence and outcome

Abstract

Objective: Information about epidemiology on burns is rare in China. The aim of this article is to describe the pattern of burns in East China during a 10-year time period.

Method: A retrospective data analysis was performed on all hospitalized patients to the burn center at the Changhai hospital, one of major burn centers in East China, from 2005 to 2014.

Results: We included 3376 patients in this study. Among them, 48.1% were from 27 provinces out of Shanghai and nearly 90% were from East China. August saw the most admissions and November saw the fewest. Spring and summer separately dominated in number of female and male patients. Children aged 2-5 and working-age adult were the most commonly treated. Home was the commonest place of injury, followed by industrial-related places, outdoors, public buildings, and vehicles or roads. Scalds remained the primary reason, followed by fire, contact burns, electricity, and chemicals. The average %TBSA of male patients was 14.2±21.3, significantly different from that of female patients (10.4±16.9). Extremities were the most vulnerable body region burned, followed by the trunk, face and hands. The average hospital length of stay in male patients was 25.4±72.4 days, significantly different from that of females' 19.9±27.6 days. The total mortality was 1.8% and the lethal area burned resulting in 50% mortality was 96.5% TBSA.

Conclusion: Compared with published data, these result are encouraging, which demonstrate that burn care and treatment has made significant progress. Burn clinicians should bear not only the responsibility to treat and cure burns, but also the popularization of knowledge about burn precautions and emergency treatments.

Keywords: Burns; China; Epidemiology; Etiology; Mortality.