Burn Care

Background: Staphyloccocus aureus is a bacterium that normally occurs in about 30% of the population and colonizes nose, mouth, armpit and groin, without necessarily causing infection.

Burn patients represents essentially a normal population but in which the burns themselves is a breeding ground for the establishment of infections and therefore a secondary influence on the immunological defense. Sepsis and serious wound infections due to S. aureus is very common in burn patients. According to other studies 50-60% of patients with major burns suffer infections caused by S. aureus.

Whether the infection is nosocomial or caused by the patient's own normal flora has never been investigated until now.

The aim is to investigate the use of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and image processing in order to generate both a decision and also an opportunity to automate decision making.

Purpose: To study the importance of nutrition after minor burns (< 20% of the body area).

Hypothesis: Adequate nutritional status (adequate energy and protein intake as well as weight stability) after a minor burn leads to better results (faster wound healing, fewer infections).

Significance: The importance of nutrition after minor burns is relatively unexplored. By identifying energy and protein needs, we as clinicians can get guidance on how to better treat this patient group in the future. Since nutritional status and frequency of malnutrition after minor burns are poorly studied, results from this study can provide guidance on whether nutritional screening can be a future tool for identifying patients in need of continued nutritional care also after minor burns.

Several studies have shown procalcitonin (PCT) to be a good marker for (early) detection of sepsis. However, as with other biomarkers (CRP, LPK, etc.), the specificity and sensitivity are questioned in the case of burns. Burn patients' strong, systemic, inflammatory response to the injury means that the symptoms/findings are essentially the same as for severe infection or sepsis. This makes diagnosis of sepsis in burn victims extremely difficult. The aim of this study is to investigate the temporal course of PCT and its correlation to other biomarkers and clinical findings in burn injury.

Each year over 300 000 people die worldwide due to burns, and about 90% of burns occur in countries with low and middle incomes. The morbidity after large burns is often considerable and commonly associated with reduced quality of life. Older Scandinavian investigations have indicated that about 0.4% of the population seek medical care for burns each year. With the current population in Sweden this would extrapolate to about 38 000 burns treated each year. In several projects and from different aspects are we investigating the epidemiology of fire-related injuries and deaths in Sweden.