Burn patients with infection-related ventilator associated complications have worse outcomes compared to those without ventilator associated events

Background The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) replaced its definition for ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) in 2013. The aim of the current study is to compare the outcome of burn patients with ventilator associated events (VAEs). Methods Burn patients with at least two days of ventilator support were identified from the registry between 2013 and 2016. Kruskal-Wallis and Fisher's exact tests were utilized for continuous and categorical variables, respectively. A logistic regression was used for the association between VAE and in-hospital mortality. Results 243 patients were admitted to our burn center, of whom 208 had no VAE, 8 had a VAC, and 27 had an IVAC or PVAP. There was no difference in hospital length of stay, ICU length of stay and ventilator support days between those with no VAE and a VAC. Those with IVAC-plus had significantly worse outcomes compared to patients with no VAEs. Conclusions Burn patients with IVAC-plus had significantly longer hospital and ICU lengths of stay, days on ventilator compared with patients with no VAEs.