Acute Kidney Injury among Burn Patients in a Tertiary Care in Western Nigeria

Abstract

Acute Kidney Injury among Burn patients has not been widely described especially in developing countries. The current study is aimed at providing information on the pattern of acute kidney injury. This review focuses on burn aetiologies and Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) as seen in different types of burns, peculiar features and mortality pattern at a burns facility in a tertiary hospital unit in South Western Nigeria. This is a 5-year audit of all admissions into the burns unit of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Teaching Hospital Osogbo, Osun State, Nigeria from May 1st, 2004 to May 1st, 2009. The case notes of the patients and admission registers of the unit were the sources of information. A total of 147 patients with different types of burns were admitted during the period under review with age range of 1 to 70 years (mean of 28± 4yrs). There were 84 males and 63 females. The majority (133 or 90.4%) of the patients had thermal burns while 7 (4.8%) had electrical burns, 1(0.7%) had chemical burn. Eighteen (12.2%) of the total patients developed acute kidney injury. All the patients with AKI had various forms and degrees of thermal burns (i.e. flame and scald injury). The average length of hospital stay was 18.3 days while sepsis was a major contributory factor to mortality in 15 of the entire patients with burns. Only 9 (50.0%) of the 18 patients survived bringing the
mortality among the patients with Acute kidney injury to 50.0%. Mortality is high among patients with acute kidney injury in failure at our burns unit despite intensive care. Adequate conservative care with appropriate early referral of patients remains the cornerstone of burn care. Adequate information on preventive strategies of burns should be vigorously pursued