title: Weight maintenance in pediatric burned patients.
abstract: Weight change, defined as the difference between the preadmission and discharge weights, has often been used as an indicator of the adequacy of nutrition support. Weight change has been found to be uninterpretable in burned patients because excision and grafting contribute to weight loss but do not reflect systemic physiology. Also, normal growth during hospitalization contributes to weight gain but is not included in traditional methods of assessing weight change of children. We examined weight change corrected for escharectomies and growth in 42 adult and pediatric burned patients. Thirty-five of the patients had weight loss within 10% of their premorbid weight. Moreover, weight loss was correlated with three observable patient characteristics: age, percent initial burn size, and preburn weight. It was concluded that the dietary regimen of providing twice the predicted basal metabolic rate in terms of calories, based on ideal body weight, was adequate to prevent significant weight loss in most patients but that further refinement is necessary to improve individual reliability. Furthermore, significant weight losses may not affect morbidity/mortality as previously thought.
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Bell
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Molnar
authors.forename: W S
authors.initials: WS
authors.lastname: Krasker
authors.forename: J F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Burke
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001835:Body Weight; D002056:Burns / Q000378:metabolism / Q000628:therapy*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002149:Energy Intake; D004734:Energy Metabolism; D004750:Enteral Nutrition; D005260:Female; D005526:Food, Formulated; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009584:Nitrogen / Q000378:metabolism; D009751:Nutritional Requirements
chemical_list: D009584:Nitrogen