Burns : journal of the International Society for Burn Injuries
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The number of citations an article receives is a reassuring marker for its influence in the academic world. ⋯ We found that the number of words and the number of pages within a dermatology manuscript had the strongest positive correlation for a higher citation count. The results of this study can benefit authors who may improve the citation of their articles by utilizing this bibliometric study when assembling their manuscript.
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Review Meta Analysis
Impact of nicotine/smoking, alcohol, and illicit substance use on outcomes and complications of burn patients requiring hospital admission: systematic review and meta-analysis.
Burn patients admitted to the hospital with concurrent intoxication are believed to be at an increased risk of poor outcomes and the development of complications, however data varies within the literature and remains controversial. This systematic review and meta-analysis compared outcomes and complications between nicotine/smoking, alcohol, and/or substance use in 26,512 burn patients admitted to the hospital to 299,543 burn patients admitted without these characteristics. The PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science databases were systematically and independently searched. ⋯ Patients using nicotine/smoking were associated with higher rates of intubation and wound/local skin infections. Patients consuming alcohol were associated with more days on a ventilator, had higher rates of intubation, higher rates of inhalation injury, longer ICU LOS, and increased mortality. Patients taking substances were associated with higher %TBSA (percent total body surface area) of burns, longer hospital LOS, higher rates of intubation, higher rates of inhalation injury, longer ICU LOS, and increased wound/local skin infections.
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Survival after burn injury has steadily improved in recent decades. The models for assessing the severity of burn injury and predicting burn-associated mortality have been used for over 20 years. The predictive accuracy of these models should be reconsidered now. ⋯ The four widely used burn models have poor accuracy in predicting burn-associated mortality, and an accurate new model was developed based on simple and objective clinical characteristics of burn patients at admission.
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Burn wounds contain high levels of protease activity due to the need to remodel the damaged extracellular matrix proteins. While necessary, excessive protease activity can lead to improper wound healing and is associated with increased contraction and fibrosis. No studies to date have investigated the expression changes of all the collagenases and elastases in burn wounds. ⋯ None of the serine proteases were significantly altered in the wound tissues. In conclusion, matrix metalloproteinases appear to be the most highly elevated proteases after a pediatric burn wound injury, at least within the first 3-7 days. The data warrant further investigation into the effects of MMPs on burn wound healing.