Evaluation of mortality following severe burns injury in Hungary: External validation of a prediction model developed on Belgian burn data

Purpose: To evaluate mortality in a group of Hungarian burn patients and, as such, to perform an external validation of a prediction model developed on Belgian burn data by which the mortality appraisal was executed. Basic procedures: In a historical cohort we analysed all burn patients admitted between 1998 and 2006 to the Debrecen University Hospital (n = 2326). The prediction model, based on three criteria (age, burned surface area (BSA) and inhalation injury) was also used to evaluate several subpopulations based on gender and age. Main findings: Mean age was 35.3 years, mean BSA was 10.7%, 54% of the population was male, inhalation injury was rare (n = 7; 0.3%) and overall mortality was 1.4% (1.6% male, 1.1% female). The men were younger and more severely burned, which was significant in every age group above 2 years. The model gave an accurate prediction of mortality, with a small overestimation in the lower risk categories. The receiver operating characteristic analysis demonstrated an area under the curve of 0.94 (95% confidence interval: 0.89-0.98). Conclusion: Overall burn mortality in Hungary was low. The mortality prediction model demonstrated a high discriminative value. As such, this model is a helpful tool for outcome prediction and risk stratification for research purposes in burn patients. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd and ISBI. All rights reserved.