Epidemiological and clinical profile of burn victims: Hospital Universitario San Vicente de Paúl, Medellín, 1994–2004

Objectives To describe the clinical and epidemiological profile of the patients in the Burn Unit of the Hospital Universitario San Vicente de Paúl (HUSVP) de Medellín, Colombia, from 1994–2004. Methods Retrospective descriptive study of all pediatric and adult burn patients. The following were recorded: age, gender, cause, extent and severity of the burns, time in the hospital, operations, complications and death rate. Statistica 6.0 (Stafsoft Inc.) was used. Results Two thousand three hundred and nineteen patients were admitted, 66.8% were males and 62.9% were less than 15 years old. Burns caused by scalding were the most frequent (45.9%) followed by flames (38.5%) The average burn area was 26.9%. Average hospital stay was 26.9 days. In 2004, 40.4% of the patients required surgery; 13.4% of the patients had complications. 7.4% of the patients died, with an average burn area of 62%; burns caused by flames accounted for 63% of the deaths. Conclusions There is a continuing improvement in hospital stay, survives burn sizes, with figures comparable to others without access to a tissue bank or skin cultivation.