Statistics on Burn Injuries Over a 26-year Periodin Clinics with Beds

Abstract

 We statistically analyzed data for 50,376 burn patients over a 26-year period (April 1, 1993 to March 31, 2019) ; the patients’ first visit to a clinic fell within the specified period. In 2018, 25-year data on burn patients was aggregated at the 44^th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Burn Injuries. Combined with the number of patients recorded in the following year, the total was 50,376. We present the aggregated data in this report.
 There were 17,437 male patients and 32,939 female patients, with a gender ratio of 0.53.
 The most prevalent age group was ≤ years (approximately 15,936 patients［31.6%］) . The gender ratio in this age group was 1.02, demonstrating an equal number of males and females. The major causes of burn injuries were as follows: hot liquids in 24,105 (47.9%) , hot solids in 17,656 (35.1%) , fire/flame in 3,784 (7.5%) , and hot gases in 2,679 (5.9% ) . These four causes accounted for 95.7% of all burn injuries. Of the 24,105 burns caused by hot liquids (the most prevalent cause) , 10,581 were caused by hot water, 6,023 were caused by hot oil, 2,084 were caused by hot tea/coffee, and 1,439 were caused by hot miso soup.
 Of the 17,656 burns caused by hot solids, 5,198 were caused by heating appliances, 2,258 were caused by irons, 1,070 were caused by fireworks, and 608 were caused by steam from a rice cooker. The number of burn patients recorded in FY2018（n=1,245）was less than half of that recorded in FY1993（n=2,690）. In the first year, 46.3% patients were recorded. In addition to aggregating a large number of patients, we considered it important to examine the fluctuations during this period.
 We therefore performed statistical analysis by dividing the 26-year duration into two parts, the first and second periods. The total number of patients in the first and second periods was 29,836 and 20,540（68.8% of the number recorded in the first period）, respectively. When analyzed by gender, the number of male patients in the second period was 60.2% of that recorded in the first period, whereas the number of female patients in the second period was 73.8% of that recorded in the first period, revealing considerable decrease rates. When analyzed by cause, the rate of decrease was substantial in burn injuries caused by fire/flame（51.2%）and explosion（37.5%）.
 The number of burn injuries caused by stoves in the second period was 44.0% of that recorded in the first period. However, the number of burn injuries caused by hair irons in the second period increased to 1,100% of that recorded in the first period.