Journal of burn care & research : official publication of the American Burn Association
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The objective of this study was to analyze the financial implications of the implementation of new institutional practice guidelines including greater outpatient care and earlier operative intervention in a provincial burn center. A retrospective review was performed including all patients admitted to the Burn Unit with burns up to 20% TBSA between August 2005 and July 2009, including 2 years before and after the new guidelines were introduced. Daily costs for the burn unit were used to calculate this portion of cost. ⋯ With an average of 66 such patients treated each year, potential annual cost savings are Can$1.3 million. If outcomes are not compromised, earlier operative management and greater outpatient care can translate into significant cost savings. A prospective analysis capturing all costs and patient quality of life is required for further assessment.
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Although pediatric burn injuries are common, there is a lack of burn-specific health outcome measurements for children. The American Burn Association and the Shriners Hospitals for Children have developed the Burn Outcomes Questionnaire (BOQ), which is a parent-report questionnaire measuring the functional outcome after burn in children aged 5 to 18 years. The aim of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Swedish version of the BOQ, assessing feasibility, reliability, and validity aspects. ⋯ The test-retest reliability was significant in the majority of subscales. Evidence of validity was shown by associations among the BOQ subscales and between BOQ subscales and measures of burn severity, heat sensitivity, fear-avoidance beliefs, and parent reports of the child's psychological problems. In conclusion, with the exception of a few subscales, this study supports the continued evaluation of the Swedish version of BOQ as a tool to measure outcome after burn in children aged 5 to 18 years.
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Comparative Study
A comparison of dexmedetomidine and midazolam for sedation in severe pediatric burn injury.
Dexmedetomidine (DEX) is an α-adrenergic agonist that has been used for sedation during invasive procedures and endotracheal intubation. In pediatric burn injury, DEX has been shown to be safe as a long-term sedative in the intensive care unit (ICU). However, comparison of DEX with traditional sedatives, such as midazolam, for sedation in pediatric burn injury has not been performed. ⋯ The DEX group had fewer hypotensive episodes (mean arterial pressure <60 mm Hg) while on infusion compared with the midazolam group (15.8 vs 29.7 episodes). Thus, it can be surmised that DEX is a safe and effective sedative for pediatric burn patients. Compared to midazolam, DEX may provide more effective sedation and less sedation-related hypotension.
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We evaluated vancomycin levels as recent guidelines for therapeutic monitoring of vancomycin (not available at the time these data were collected) recommend trough levels of 15 to 20 μg/mL; however, this may be more difficult to achieve in patients with accelerated vancomycin clearance, such as burn patients or recipients of continuous venovenous hemofiltration (CVVH) therapy. We retrospectively studied 2110 serum vancomycin levels of 171 patients admitted to the burn intensive care unit for more than 4 years and who received vancomycin by continuous infusion (CI) or intermittent infusion (II), with or without simultaneous CVVH. In-hospital mortality, 14- and 28-day mortality following vancomycin therapy were not different between dosing methods, although increased mortality was observed in the subgroup of patients receiving CI vancomycin empirically for clinical sepsis with negative blood cultures. ⋯ CI produced more frequent therapeutic vancomycin levels and less frequent subtherapeutic levels compared to II. However, therapeutic vancomycin levels were achieved infrequently by either method of dosing. Given equivalent therapeutic drug monitoring costs and the lack of a clear clinical benefit, the role of CI dosing remains to be defined in spite of practical and theoretical advantages, particularly when administered in the setting of CVVH.
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Laser Doppler imaging (LDI) has been increasingly used to predict pediatric burn wound outcome. A majority of these wounds are scald, contact, or flame burns. No study has specifically evaluated the use of LDI in pediatric friction burns. ⋯ Of the remaining five incorrect predictions, four were caused by an inability to correlate the flux scan with the clinical appearance of the burn, and one was thought to take more than 21 days to heal but healed within this period. Our data suggest that LDI appears to be a less reliable tool in predicting the outcome of friction burns when compared to other mechanisms of burn injury in children. This may reflect the physical differences in the mechanism of friction burns as opposed to other forms of thermal injury.