Fungal wound infection (not colonization) is independently associated with mortality in burn patients.

Objective: To analyze the occurrence of fungal wound infection (FWI) after thermal injury and its relationship to mortality.

Background: FWI is an uncommon but potentially lethal complication of severe thermal injury.

Methods: The records of patients with thermal burns admitted to a single burn center (1991-2002) were reviewed.

One hundred ninety-five cases of high-voltage electric injury.

High-voltage electric injury (HVEI) is associated with a high incidence of extremity compartment syndrome and of major amputation. The purpose of this study was to review our experience with HVEI and to attempt to develop predictors of the need for fasciotomy and amputation in patients with HVEI. The records of the 195 patients with HVEI who were admitted to a single burn center during a 19-year period were reviewed.

The link between the insecticide heptachlor epoxide, estradiol, and breast cancer.

Given the suspected effects of estrogens on breast cancer, xenoestrogenic insecticides may be a risk factor. Studies of the weak xenoestrogen, 1,1-dichloro-2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)ethylene (DDE), have failed to demonstrate a causal relationship, though another estrogenic organochlorine insecticide, dieldrin, belonging to the cyclodiene family, has recently been linked to breast cancer. Other cyclodienes such as heptachlor epoxide (HE) and oxychlordane (OC) present in breast tissue have not been evaluated as rigorously, presumably due to their lower concentration and lower recovery using solvent extraction procedures.

Xenoestrogens: do they lower survival after thermal injury?

The effect of hormone disruptors on human health is an area of recent concern. The authors measured heptachlor epoxide and oxychlordane--the body storage forms of estrogenic insecticides-in the sera of patients with major burns (i.e.