Burns Related to Clothing Ignition: More Fuel for the Fire?

Abstract

Recently at this center, a cluster of patients was admitted for treatment of burn injuries related to ignition of clothing by contained sources such as candles and cigarettes. Upon performing a literature search to investigate national prevalence of these injuries, it was discovered that current data reporting on burn injuries due to clothing ignition focused upon uncontained sources such as house fires. In order to further investigate the extent of this problem among patients admitted to this tertiary burn care facility, a review was performed. All patients whose admitting assessment specified burn injury due to ignition of clothing from a localized source and who were admitted to this center between 1/01–8/05 were included in the study group. Demographics, extent/circumstance of injury, treatment and discharge disposition as documented in medical records and the registry were reviewed. During the study period, 218 patients (53% males) were hospitalized for treatment of these burn...