A study of renal damage in seriously burned patients

The incidence of acute renal failure (ARF) in severely burned patients ranges from 1.3 per cent to 38 per cent and this complication has always been associated with a high mortality rate, of between 73 and 100 per cent. At present the exact mechanisms responsible for the onset of this complication are not well known. In order to elucidate some of these mechanisms, 20 patients with severe burns were studied for 1 year in an attempt to assess the prevailing glomerular or tubular localization of renal damage; the organic or functional pattern of renal damage and the reliability and possible prognostic significance of some renal function indices. These included the fractional excretion of sodium (FeNa), the alpha-glucosidases, the leucine aminopeptidases (LAP) and the serum and urine beta 2-microglobulin. The incidence of ARF in the patients studied was 26 per cent and in all cases it was of polyuric type. We believe that renal damage very often remains undetected when the traditional testing methods are used and that only in some patients does it become severe enough to result in ARF. In contrast, some of the tests considered in our study are extremely useful and reveal an impairment of renal function long before it becomes clinically apparent.