Burn injuries in US service members: 2001-2018

Burns are an important cause of battlefield injury, accounting for 5-20% of the combat injury burden. To date, no report has examined the full range of burns, from mild to severe, resulting from post-9/11 conflicts. The present study leverages the Expeditionary Medical Encounter Database (EMED), a Navy-maintained health database describing all service member medical encounters occurring during deployment, to capture, quantify and characterize burn-injured service members and the injuries they sustained while deployed in support of post-9/11 operations.

The EMED was queried for all surviving service members with at least one burn injury, identified using injury-specific Abbreviated Injury Scale codes. Demographic and additional injury information were also obtained from the EMED.

From 2001 through 2018, 2507 deployed service members sustained 5551 burns. Blasts accounted for 82% of injuries, largely attributed to the use of improvised explosive devices. Concurrent injury was common, with 30% sustaining a traumatic brain injury and 10% sustaining inhalation injury. Most burns were small, with 92% involving< 20% TBSA; 85% of burns involved< 10% TBSA. The head and the hands were the most commonly affected areas, accounting for 48% of all burns, with 80% of service members sustaining at least one burn to these areas.

The majority of burns tend to be small in size, with the head and hands most commonly affected. As these areas are often left uncovered by the uniform, prevention measures, particularly improvement in and increased usage of personal protective gear, may help reduce these injuries and their consequences.