Burn Wound Infection

Burn wound infections are common and early complications in patients with burn injuries with the greatest risk factors being higher total body surface area burns and delayed excision of the eschar. Clinical suspicion of wound infection is based on changes to the burn wound such as edema, erythema, pain, and purulence. The gold standard of diagnosis is culture and histology. Early infections are most commonly caused by gram-positive organisms, such as Staphylococcus aureus. With longer hospital stays, infections are more likely to be caused by gram-negative organisms such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which can harbor antibiotic resistance. Surgical debridement is the fundamental treatment of burn wound infection in combination with topical antimicrobials such as silver-based therapies and systemic antibiotics that are targeted based on the patient and/or local antibiogram susceptibilities.