Our 18-month experience at a new burn center in Gaziantep, Turkey

This study is a retrospective analysis of 411 cases admitted to Cengiz Gökcek State Hospital Burn Center from 1 May 2007 to 10 October 2008.

Through an electronic database of medical records of the burn center, all patients admitted to the center were traced. With respect to the numbers of burns according to sex, 35.7% (147) of the cases were female and 64.3% (264) were male.

For total burn surface area (TBSA) of 20-35%, the hospital stays for electric, flame and scald burns were 28, 18 and 12 days, respectively. For TBSA of 35-50%, electric burns resulted in a mean stay of 44 days, followed by chemical burns (33 days), flame (31 days), and scald (22 days). For TBSA over 50%, electric and scald burns resulted in hospital stays of > or =40 days. Case fatality was 5.6% (23 patients). 1.2% of the study group experienced at least one episode of epilepsy during treatment. Six cases had acute renal failure that responded to hemofiltration during treatment. Eight cases, which were flame burns, also had inhalation injury, and four of these cases required mechanical ventilation.

Members of the burn care team not only carry a heavy workload in the treatment of burn victims, we believe they also have the responsibility of recording and publishing their own data to increase the overall knowledge related with the subject, which will guide future studies.