International Abstracts

The aim of this paper from India was to assess whether serum cytokines can predict the outcome of thermal burn injuries. A prospective study was carried out from January 2016 to December 2016, involving 30 patients with 30–50% total body surface area (TBSA) burns. Proinflammatory cytokines interleukin-1B and interleukin- 6 were quantitatively estimated on postburn day 4 and every 5 days thereafter. Proinflammatory cytokine levels were high in patients with higher percentage total body surface area burns. Temporal cytokine profiling revealed significant differences between the pattern of patients who survived and those who didn’t. Reduction in cytokine levels IL-1B, IL-6 in the survival group over the course of treatment and observation of incremental temporal expression in cytokine levels in the non-survival group indicated its recalcitrant nature on treatment and thereby dictated catastrophic outcome. The authors conclude that the temporal analysis of cytokines could serve as a predictor of thermal burn injury outcome