Pediatric burn injury at home over 30 years: A road to future prevention

Injury prevention is valuable for pediatric burns at home. To develop future target of prevention, we aimed to elucidate characteristics and chronological changes of pediatric burn injuries at home in urban areas.

We conducted a retrospective observational study using the database of the Tokyo Burn Unit Association, which comprises 14 tertiary burn centers, the Tokyo Fire Department, Tokyo Medical Association, and the Tokyo city government. We included pediatric patients aged ≤ 15 years who had a burn injury at home in the last 30 years and divided them into five groups at 6-year intervals. We compared the mechanism, severity, and outcome of burn injuries between the groups.

We included 1092 pediatric patients, with no significant chronological changes in the incidence of burn injuries at home (approximately 200 patients in each 6-year period). The median age was 1 year in all the groups. Flame burns decreased from 7.7 % to 1.6 %, whereas scald burns remained at > 80 %. The burn area decreased from 10 (5-16) % total body surface area (%TBSA) to 7 (3-11) %TBSA. The length of hospital stay was reduced from 6 to 2 days, and in-hospital mortality was 0.4-0.5 % in the last decade.

The incidence of flame burns and burn area decreased over time with improving clinical outcomes in pediatric burns. The number of scald burns remained the same over time; thus, further social intervention is needed to prevent scald burns.