Meta-Analysis of the Global Mortality Rate Due to Infection in Burn Patients Admitted for Plastic Surgery

Relatively higher-quality human studies compared with other topics in this database, e.g. multiple RCTs or systematic reviews. This does not mean it is standard or approved care.

• Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
• Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
• Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
• Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
• Emerging · Emerging topic under active research

Abstract (original English)

Burn patients are generally prone to infection, which causes the patient's condition to be even worse. However, there is no study regarding the difference between the mortality rate of infected and non-infected patients. Therefore, the aim was to identify and compare the global mortality rate between infected and non-infected patients who were admitted to plastic surgery units. We searched PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar and finally included five articles for this meta-analysis. We determined the odds ratio (OR) value by forest plot and assessed the study bias by a funnel plot. We also analyzed the quality and heterogeneity. The OR was determined as 0.43 (95%CI: 0.07-2.60), indicating a higher mortality rate in infected burn patients as compared to non-infected patients. The funnel plot showed no significant study bias. The quality of the studies was assessed high as well, and the heterogeneity was determined significant (I 2 >75%). The sensitivity analysis with the fixed effect model reconfirmed our main outcome. However, as a study limitation, we could not specifically determine the impact of strain-specific infection on the mortality rate and could not find more relevant research regarding this issue. We conclude that the overall non-infected burn patient mortality rate is lower as compared to the infected burn patients; however, non-infected patients can be prone

Evidence level

Relatively higher-quality human studies compared with other topics in this database, e.g. multiple RCTs or systematic reviews. This does not mean it is standard or approved care.

Browse all related research

Filter the research library by this study's title keywords, author, or publication year.