Incidence of combined burns and major trauma in England and Wales

Abstract

Introduction Within the United Kingdom’s major trauma networks, limited consideration is given to the management of concomitant burns and trauma injuries, prominently highlighted in the arrangement of specialist services for major trauma and burns care. The majority of the literature regarding this topic, based almost exclusively on North American studies, predicts between 5 and 7% of all patients admitted to burns centres will suffer from concomitant (non-thermal) trauma injuries, in addition to their burn injuries. The aim of this study is to understand the epidemiology and outcomes for patients sustaining burns and trauma injuries in England and Wales. Methods A retrospective review of patients sustaining concomitant burns and trauma injuries was made over a 71-month period from January 2010 to November 2016, using the national trauma registry for England and Wales, the Trauma Audit and Research Network database, identifying all patients with injury codes for burns and trauma (AIS >3). Data collected comprised patient demographic information, burn injury percentages, details of trauma injuries, details of hospital stay, and patient outcome. Comparison of information was made against the total burns and total trauma cohort to form a base standard for burns and trauma injuries, respectively. Results Over the period analysed, 188 patients were found to have concomitant burns and trauma injuries. The patients were stratified according to age and the percentage of total body surface area burned. Hospital length of stay for concomitant burns and trauma patients was found to be higher than that of patients with isolated burns injuries. Mortality rates, although low overall, were found to be relatively higher for patients with concomitant burns and trauma injuries. Conclusions This study demonstrated the rarity of this combination of injury pattern, in particular the occurrence of severe burns in the presence of major trauma, in UK. Improvements in burns care and trauma care hopefully contributes to the higher level of survival in concomitantly injured patients against data from previous literature. However, the synergistic effect of burns and trauma injuries appears to impact on the course of such patients, although larger scale analysis is required to determine the true prognostic factors.