Retrospective analysis of burn injuries caused by hot milk in 159 pediatric patients: 14 years of experience in a burn unit.

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to investigate the hot milk burns among the pediatric patients and to compare our experiences with similar studies in the literature. METHODS A 14-year retrospective study was conducted on 159 pediatric patients with hot milk burn who hospitalized at the Burn Unit of Erciyes University Medical Faculty. RESULTS There were 81 male and 78 female patients with a male to female ratio of 1.03:1. The mean age of the patients was 2.7±1.6 years. The initial injury was immersion in 59.7% of the patients and spillage in 40.3%. The mean burned body surface area of the patients was 18.6±10.8%. Twenty-two percent of the patients had moderate, and 78% had major burn trauma. Forty-nine percent of the patients received burn wound debridement and reconstruction with auto-skin grafts. Our burn unit's mortality rate was 1.5% among 542 pediatric patients with hot water, and 5.6% among 159 pediatric patients with hot milk burn during the same period, respectively. CONCLUSION Hot milk burns should be considered as separately from other hot liquid burns which do not contain fat such as water, tea, and coffee. Physical and chemical properties of milk because of its high content of fat give rise to more tissue destruction, increased morbidity and mortality.