title: Increased susceptibility to infection related to extent of burn injury.
abstract: A model of burn wound sepsis in which the mortality caused by infection was significantly greater after a 60% total body surface area (TBSA) burn than after a 30% TBSA burn was developed in the rat. In rats that sustained a 60% TBSA burn (30% partial plus 30% full thickness), the 30% TBSA partial-thickness burn that was inoculated with Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain 59-1244 developed invasive wound infection (greater 10(5) colony-forming units per gram of tissue). Infection did not develop in rats that had a 30% TBSA partial-thickness burn inoculated, without additional injury. The additional burn in the rats with a 60% TBSA burn seemed to affect the development of infection in the partial-thickness wound and the overall outcome by a mechanism other than by infection of the full-thickness wound itself. Autopsy confirmed that mortality was caused by sepsis.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001835:Body Weight; D002056:Burns / Q000150:complications* / Q000382:microbiology; D002634:Chemotaxis, Leukocyte; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D004198:Disease Susceptibility; D006801:Humans; D011552:Pseudomonas Infections / Q000209:etiology / Q000276:immunology / Q000401:mortality; D011550:Pseudomonas aeruginosa / Q000302:isolation & purification; D051381:Rats; D011919:Rats, Inbred Strains; D014946:Wound Infection / Q000209:etiology* / Q000276:immunology / Q000401:mortality