Correlation of occurrence of infection in burn patients

The study of burn flora is helpful in determining current antibiotic susceptibilities and locating development of multidrug resistant bacterial strains among the unit's usual flora. In this study, we aimed to determine the bacteriological pattern of blood, urine and sputum infections and their correlation with burn wound infections. We used data from our burn registry program. All data on demographics, burn wounds and burn wound infection, bacteria isolated, sensitivity to different antibiotics, burn wound culture, sputum culture, urine culture and catheter tip culture were recorded. We had 1721 hospitalized burn patients. Mean age was 26.3+/-20.25 years old. Mean hospital stay was 14.41 days (range 0-64 days). Mean (SD) TBSA was 16.48 (20.67) years. Mortality rate was 5.9%. Burn wound infection was present in 38.54%. The most frequent species was Staphylococcus spp. (55.1%), followed by Pseudomonas (14.29%), Enterococcus (12.24%), E. coli (4%), Klebsiella and Proteus (both 2%). Urine culture was positive in 27.9%, sputum culture was positive in 1.14%, catheter tip culture was positive in 12.3% and blood culture was positive in 7.6% of the cases. There were correlations between positive wound culture and blood and urine culture, most of them with one bacteria species. The most frequent disseminated bacteria was Pseudomonas aeruginosa and the most sensitive antibiotic was Amikacin. More than 39.2% of our positive culture patients had 3 or more positive cultures, and 36.5% had similar culture results for one bacteria, which was a sign of disseminated infection.