Examination of the Life Expectancy of Patients with Burns over 20% of Their Total Body Surface Area in Comparison to the Rest of the Population.
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.
From the *The Burn Unit, Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Sheba Medical Center, Affiliated to Sackler School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat Gan, Israel; †The Talpiot Medical Leadership Program, 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; and ‖St. George's, University of London/Medical School at the University of Nicosia, Cyprus.
Oren
O
Weissman
Yonatan
Y
Wagman
Adi
A
Givon
Irina
I
Radomislensky
Kobi
K
Peleg
Demetris
D
Stavrou
Josef
J
Haik
Ariel
A
Tessone
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001830:Body Surface Area; D002056:Burns / Q000401:mortality* / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007557:Israel; D008017:Life Expectancy; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015599:Trauma Severity Indices; D055815:Young Adult