Occurrence and early outcomes of inhalation burns in burn injury patients admitted to Kenyatta National hospital a referral burns centre in east Africa

Abstract

Introduction; Bum injuries occur universally and have plagued mankind from antiquity till now. Burn injuries constitute a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Inhalation burns occur in most of severe cases resulting in the immediate post burn deaths if appropriate measures are not undertaken. Methods; This was a descriptive cross sectional prospective study carried out over a period of 4 months among severely burnt inpatients at Kenyatta National Hospital in Bums Unit, Intensive Care Unit(ICU) and High Dependency Unit(HDU) who met the inclusion criteria. Results; A total of 50 patients with a mean age of 23 years were enrolled. The male to female ratio was 3:2 with almost all of the patients being of low socioeconomic status. Over 80% of the patients were from house fires. The mean time before admission was 4 hours. Sixteen patients were intubated and 31 % of these died within the first 72 hours of admission. Conclusion; Most inhalation bum injuries occurred due to house fires. Intubation was done without bronchoscopy. There is need for fire prevention policy and adherence to inhalation injury management protocol.