Association of burn mortality and bacteremia. A 25-year review
A. D. Mason Jr, A. T. McManus and B. A. Pruitt Jr
The relationship between bacteremia and mortality was studied in 5882 burn
patients consecutively admitted to one burn center between 1959 and 1983.
Among 5877 patients with adequate data, 1481 had one or more positive blood
cultures; 1529 patients died. A predictor of mortality was developed, based
on data from the 4396 patients without positive blood cultures, and used to
assign a discrete probability of death in the absence of bacteremia to all
the patients. Comparisons were then made between observed and predicted
mortality in subsets of patients with bacteremia due to enteric organisms,
Pseudomonas species, gram-positive organisms, or yeastlike organisms, or
without bacteremia. These comparisons indicate significantly increased
mortality in patients with gram-negative bacteremia, an equivocal increase
in patients with blood cultures positive for yeastlike organisms, and no
increase attributable to gram-positive bacteremia.
