Severe burn: kidney and heart disease reduce survival rates

Each year, in mainland France, 8,000 patients are hospitalized due to burns, according to Public health France. These are therefore serious burns – for an adult this means that it affects more than 10% of the body surface and that it is of the second or third degree – which require immediate attention. In 2014, 190 people died in hospital from burns.

Burns are more serious for those with kidney and heart disease

In a new study published in the journal Surgeryresearchers wanted to know if kidney and heart disease had an impact on the survival rate after severe burns. To do this, they examined data from 1,193 patients hospitalized in intensive care between 2000 and 2019 for serious burns. The influence of pre-existing chronic diseases – kidney and heart – was included in the analysis.

Severe burn: almost 50% of patients with kidney failure died

According to the results, 48.6% of people with kidney failure did not survive their severe burns. For those with pre-existing cardiovascular disease, about a third of patients could not be saved.

These two types of pathologies therefore have a significant impact on patient survival. The authors note that the influence of kidney disease was stronger in men than in women. The latter were in fact more likely to survive a burn if they had a history of kidney failure.

“Fortunately, we were also able to show in our study that the prognosis of severely burned patients improves year by year thanks to the continued development of treatment options,” explains Annika Resch, head of the study, in a communicated. However, currently, survival rates still remain below average for people with severe burns and pre-existing kidney or heart disease.