Burn epidemiology: the Pink City scene

This report describes the statistical analysis of 629 burn patients treated between January 1989 and August 1990. The analysed data include age, sex, cause of burn and mortality in relation to age, cause and extent of burn injuries. Additional information with regard to socioeconomic status, marital status, place of burn, family size, type of burn, time of accident and time between injury and hospital admission was obtained from analysis of 271 of the 629 patients admitted between January 1990 and August 1990. In our series, adolescent and young adults (11-40 years) comprised 64.8 per cent of the patients. Males formed 54 per cent and females 46 per cent of the total burns. 82.65 per cent of the patients received their burns at home. Most of our patients belonged to the low or lower middle socioeconomic strata and had large families. 95.5 per cent of the burns were accidental in nature. Flame burns comprised 67.9 per cent and scalds comprised 16.4 per cent of the total burns. The overall mortality rate was 48.3 per cent. The mortality rate was comparatively low in children (20.1 per cent). Flame burns resulted in maximum deaths (62.1 per cent). In patients with over 40 per cent burns, the mortality was about 80 per cent. There were no survivors in patients with over 70 per cent TBSA burns in our series.