Anemia After Thermal Injury: Role of Oxidative Stress

Background: One of the most important changes that occur in burn patients is anemia, which represents a big clinical problem for both the burn patients and the healthcare along the course of management. There is evidence of both local and systemic oxidant changes manifested by increased oxygen, free radical activity and lipid peroxidation in animal burn models and also in human burn patients. The aim of this work is to study the incidence of anemia and the incidence of oxidative stress as a contributing factor in the development of anemia in burn patients. Patients and Methods: This study was carried out on 118 burn patients with different ages of both sexes and varying burn percentage (group A) compared with group B which is 24 normal healthy subjects utilized for comparison. For each group, hemoglobin, hematocrite, serum level of malondialdehyde, and serum level of glutathione were measured according to standard methods. Results: Results of this study showed that burn patients developed anemia at day 7 post burn as indicated by a significant decrease in hemoglobin level. They also showed the occurrence of oxidative stress that may be related in parallel way with the development of anemia in burn patients. Conclusion: Monitoring of oxidative stress parameters, namely malondialdehyde and the natural antioxidant glutathione, are of great importance during the resuscitation and care of severely burned patients, since oxidative stress represents one of the contributing factors in the development of anemia in burn patients and this rationalizes the clinical importance of using antioxidants in the management ofburn patients.