Objective To investigate the clinical characteristics of extremely severe burn patients complicated with severe inhalation injury caused by dust explosion.
Methods The medical records of 13 extremely severe burn patients complicated with severe inhalation injury in August 2nd Kunshan factory aluminum dust explosion accident, who were admitted to the First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University on August 2nd, 2014, were retrospectively analyzed. The following indicators were collected: (1) Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation Ⅱ (APACHE Ⅱ) score and Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score at post admission hour (PAH) 24. (2) Prognosis, death time, causes of death, and the mortality of patients with different sexes. (3) The number of times of airway electronic bronchoscopy, airway characteristics, and the corresponding onset time. (4) The number and result of microorganism culture of lesion tissue during the leukoplakia formation stage. Detection of
Pseudomonas aeruginosa in patients with and without leukoplakia in airway mucosa. Fisher′s exact probability test was used to detect the mortality of patients with different sexes. Kappa test was used to detect the relevancy between leukoplakia and
Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
Results (1) The APACHE Ⅱ score of patients of this group at PAH 24 was (19±3) points, and the SOFA score was (12±3) points. (2) Eight patients survived, while 5 patients died, and the time of death was 19-46 (34±10) d after injury. The main cause of death was multiple organ dysfunction syndrome, which was secondary to severe infection. One of the 7 male patients and 4 of the 6 female patients died, but there was no significantly statistical difference in mortality between patients of the two sexes (
P>0.05). (3) Airway electronic bronchoscopy was performed 4-25 (10±5) times among patients of this group. Hyperemia and edema were found in the airway mucosa of all the 13 patients 2-3 weeks after injury; ulcer was found in the airway mucosa of 5 patients 2-4 weeks after injury; leukoplakia was found in the airway mucosa of 7 patients 4-14 weeks after injury; granulation formed in the airway mucosa of 7 patients 10-15 weeks after injury, and airway patency was affected, which was solved after local clamping or replacement of lengthened tracheal cannula. (4) During the leukoplakia formation stage, 19 cases of microorganism culture were performed basing on airway lesion tissue, and the results were 15 cases of
Pseudomonas aeruginosa, 5 cases of
Acinetobacter baumannii, 2 cases of
Serratia marcescens, as well as 1 case of
Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, Burkholderia cepacia, and
Proteus mirabilis each. Among 7 patients with airway mucosa leukoplakia, 6 patients were detected with
Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Among 6 patients without airway mucosa leukoplakia, 1 patient was detected with
Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The appearance of leukoplakia was consistent with the detection of
Pseudomonas aeruginosa (Kappa=0.69,
P<0.05).
Conclusions Most of these extremely severe burn patients complicated with severe inhalation injury caused by dust explosion survived, and there was no significant gender difference in mortality. Electronic bronchoscopy showed that the early manifestations of airway mucosa were hyperemia and edema, followed by varying degrees of erosion, ulcer, leukoplakia, and granulation formation, etc. Leukoplakia may be relevant to
Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection.
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