The efficacy of hair and urine toxicology screening on the detection of child abuse by burning.

Abuse by burning is estimated to occur in 1 to 25% of children admitted with burn injuries annually. Hair and urine toxicology for illicit drug exposure may provide additional confirmatory evidence for abuse. To determine the impact of hair and urine toxicology on the identification of child abuse, we performed a retrospective chart review of all pediatric patients admitted to our burn unit.

Emergence of the USA300 strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in a burn-trauma unit.

Community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), particularly USA300, is a major pathogen in the outpatient setting. We suspected that USA300 had been introduced into our burn-trauma unit (BTU) when three burn patients presented with numerous simultaneous abscesses. We did molecular typing on 206 MRSA isolates from all patients on the BTU who had MRSA isolated from either nares cultures or clinical specimens obtained between April 11, 2002 and October 24, 2006.