The clinical characteristics and microbiological investigation of pediatric burn patients with wound infections in a tertiary hospital in Ningbo, China: A ten-year retrospective study

Abstract

Burn is one of the leading causes of death and disability in children worldwide, and wound infection is an excellent challenge in burn treatment. We performed a retrospective review of pediatric burn patients with wound infections to reveal their clinical data and investigate pathogens’ distribution and drug resistance patterns to provide references for treatment. As a result, 330 pediatric burn patients with wound infections were identified; 65.8% (217/330) were < 2 years old. Most of the injuries were scalded and involved <10% total body surface area in size (TBSA), mainly causing II-degree burn and II + III-degree burn. Three hundred and fifty nine strains of pathogens were isolated, the primary pathogens were Staphylococcus aureus (45.4%) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (18.7%). Both S. aureus and P. aeruginosa isolated from 2012 to 2016 were more likely to be multi-resistant than those isolated from 2017 to 2021, as they were significantly associated with resistance to ≥4 Clinical and Laboratory Standard Institute (CLSI) classes (p = 0.040 and 0.006, respectively). In conclusion, children aged <2 years old were the main pediatric burn patients with wound infections. The primary bacteria isolated from the wound were S. aureus and P. aeruginosa, with a decreasing tendency of multi-resistance.