Burn Injury Statistics

Burn Injury Statistics and Information: Quick Facts

• According to the American Burn Association, each year in the United States, 1.1 million burn injuries require medical attention.
• Approximately 50,000 of these require hospitalization, and roughly half of those burn patients are admitted to a specialized burn unit.
• Each year, approximately 4,500 of these people die.
• Up to 10,000 people in the United States die every year of burn-related infections;
• Pneumonia is the most common infectious complication among hospitalized burn patients.
• Twenty years ago, burns covering half the body were routinely fatal;
• Today patients with burns covering 90 percent of the body can survive (but often with permanent impairments).
• Practices that have contributed to this improvement include advances in:
• Resuscitation,
• Wound cleaning
• Follow-up care,
• Nutritional support,
• Infection control.
• Grafting with natural or artificial materials can also speed the healing process.
• Complications following injury, shock, or burns may occur long after the initial incident, often when the patient is in an intensive care unit (ICU).
• Many ICU patients face similar medical problems regardless of the reason for their admission into the unit.
• The leading causes of death in ICUs are:
• Multiple organ system dysfunction, in which several of the body's organs fail at once, and;
• Adult respiratory distress syndrome, in which the lungs in particular fail.