PERIPHERAL NEUROPATHY IN BURN PATIENTS

Neuropathy in burn patients is frequently overlooked. This study aimed at looking for neuropathies among burn patients. It included 55 burn patients, whether symptomatic or asymptomatic, with variable depths of burn at different stages. Their ages ranged from 8 to 55 years with a mean age of 23.6 +/- 11.1 years. All patients were submitted to clini cal examination, electromyographic and motor conduction velocities of burned and unburned limbs. Serum electrolyte, blood urea and creatinin e were measured for ail patients. Sixteen patients (29 per cent) had p eripheral neuropathy. Only six had symptoms and signals of peripheral neuropathy. The most frequently diagnosed neuropathy in this study was mononeuritis multiplex in nine patients (56 per cent), then generaliz ed distal axonal neuropathy in five patients (31 per cent) and entrapm ent neuropathy in two patients (13 per cent). In patients with mononeu ritis, 29 nerves were affected, 24 nerves related to the sire of the b urn and five nerves were away from the site of the burn. AII the entra pment neuropathy developed after found healing. Age above 20 years, el ectric burns, burns involving full thickness of the skin and a surface area of more than 20 per cent were associated with a significantly hi gher prevalence of neuropathy. Other parameters were not found to be s ignificant in the development of neuropathy. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd for ISBI. All rights reserved.