ORIGINAL ARTICLES   

Chirurgia 2016 December;29(6):185-9

Copyright © 2016 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Risk factors of fungal infection in a children’s burn Unit

Atilla SENAYLI ¹, Mujdem N. AZILI ², Sabri DEMIR ², Can I. OZTORUN ², Rabia DEMIR ², Emrah ŞENEL ¹

¹ Pediatric Surgery Department, School of Medicine, Yildirim Beyazit University, Ankara, Turkey; ² Pediatric Surgery Department, Children’s Health and Disease Hematology and Oncology Education and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey

BACKGROUND: Fungal infections of burn injuries are one of the important factors for morbidity and mortality. Typically, these infections are identified in the second week of burns, and antibiotic therapy has been associated with this process. Also percentage of burned body area is important. In this study, we aimed to identify risk factors for fungal infections in our pediatrics burn Unit.
METHODS: Medical records of patients hospitalized between August 2009 and August 2012 were evaluated retrospectively. The parameters that we evaluated for these two groups were: burned total body surface area, age, use of antibiotics before antifungal treatments, antibiotic treatments, and median days of antibiotic treatments.
RESULTS: Twenty patients had fungal infections. All these patients were using antibiotics for bacterial infections before fungal infections. Age was insignificant when fungal and non-fungal groups were compared to each other. Burn injury in more than 40% total body surface area had 14.10 risk factor (P<0.001). Also antibiotic treatment longer than 7 days had 8.32 risk factor (P<0.001).
CONCLUSIONS: Forty percent and more burned total body surface area and antibiotic treatment longer than 7 days are important factors for fungal infections.