A Study of Post-Mortem Histopathological Changes in Septaecemia Due to Burns

The study was carried out over a period of 1-year (January 2010-December 2010), where eight hundred and twenty five autopsies were performed. Out of these One hundred and sixty two autopsies performed were deaths due to burn injuries. The male to female ratio was 0.35:1. Females succumbed to burn injuries twice frequently (65%) when compared to males (35%). The age ranged between 01–80 years(76.54% of them belonged to the 12-35years of age-group, 16% belonged to >35 years of age group and 7.4% belonged to 9 months to 11 years of age group). The total burn surface area ranged between 20% to 95% and 117 patients (72.2%) had major burns (50–95% total burn surface area). More than half of the deaths (58%, 94 cases) from burns were within 48 hrs of the incident, 25 cases (15.43%) died between 3–4 post burn days, 34 cases survived for 5 days(20.98%) and 7 cases(4.32%) survived for 10–11 days of burn injuries.

Almost 74.07% (120 cases) presented with oedema of the glottis and pulmonary oedema due to inhalation of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. More than 50 cases had multiple organ failure. Hence the most affected organ was lung (120 cases), followed by kidney (93 cases), heart (64 cases), nervous system (58 cases), digestive system (46 cases) and liver (41 cases).