Burn Care

The study aims to evaluate intraorbital pressure in burn patients using minimal invasive measurements. Orbital compartment syndrome is a rare but serious complication that can lead to permanent vision loss due to elevated intraorbital pressure. Burn patients at risk are often sedated or intubated, which complicates clinical examination. This poses a challenge to adequately assess intraorbital pressure and thereby determine the need for decompressive surgery. The goal is to improve diagnostic accuracy to prevent permanent vision loss in burn patients.

Hypothesis: Adequate nutritional status (adequate energy and protein intake and weight stability) after a minor burn leads to better outcome (faster time to wound healing, fewer infections, etc).

Significance: The importance of nutrition after minor burns is relatively unexplored. By identifying energy and protein needs, we as clinicians can gain guidance on how to better treat this patient group in the future. Since nutritional status and frequency of malnutrition after minor burns are poorly studied, results from this study may provide guidance on whether nutritional screening can be a future tool for identifying patients in need of continued nutritional care after minor burns.

Several studies have shown procalcitonin (PCT) to be a good marker for (early) detection of sepsis. However, as with other biomarkers (CRP, LPK, etc.), the specificity and sensitivity are questioned in the case of burns. Burn patients' strong, systemic, inflammatory response to the injury means that the symptoms/findings are essentially the same as for severe infection or sepsis. This makes diagnosis of sepsis in burn victims extremely difficult. The aim of this study is to investigate the temporal course of PCT and its correlation to other biomarkers and clinical findings in burn injury.

Each year over 300 000 people die worldwide due to burns, and about 90% of burns occur in low and middle income countries. The morbidity after large burns is often considerable and commonly associated with reduced quality of life. Older Scandinavian investigations have indicated that about 0.4% of the population seek medical care for burns each year. With the current population in Sweden this would extrapolate to about 40 000 burns treated each year. In several projects and from different aspects are we investigating the epidemiology of fire-related injuries and deaths in Sweden.

The aim is to investigate how fatigue after burns affects a person's daily activities, health-related quality of life and work, in the short and long term.

Fatigue is also known as brain or mental fatigue. Fatigue is a well-known complication after traumatic brain injury or diseases of the nervous system such as stroke, multiple sclerosis or Parkinson's disease. Fatigue is characterized by persistent or recurring fatigue, unclear muscle or bone pain, sleep disturbances and impaired cognitive functions. The exact cause of fatigue is still unclear.

In order to increase rehabilitation after burns and how fatigue affects daily life, the study aims to investigate to what extent fatigue is a problem among Swedish burn patients.