Non-Survival Distributions in Paediatric Burn Patients; A Comparative Study of Two National Databases

A contemporary, age-specific model for the distribution of burn mortality in children has not been developed for over a decade. Using data from TriNetX, a global federated health research network, and the American Burn Association’s Nation Burn Repository (NBR), we investigated non-survival distributions for paediatric burns in the United States. Paediatric burn patients ages 0-20 between 2010-2020 were identified in TriNetX from 41 Health Care Organizations using ICD-10 codes (T.20-T.30) and identified as lived/died. These were compared to the non-survival data from 90 certified burn centers in NBR database between 2016-2018. The patient population was stratified by age into subgroups of 0-4, 5-9, 10-14, 15-20 years. Overall, mortality rates for paediatric burn patients were found to be .62% in NBR and .52% in TrinetX. Boys had a higher incidence of mortality than girls in both databases (0.34% vs. 0.28% NBR, p = 0.13; 0.31% vs. 0.21% TriNetX, p = <0.001). Comparison of ethnic cohorts between 2010-2015 and 2016-2020 subgroups showed that non-survival rates of African American children increased relative to White children (TriNetX, p = <0.001), however, evidence was insufficient to conclude that African American children die more frequently than other ethnicities (NBR, p=0.054). When analyzing subgroups in TriNetX, burned children ages 5-9 had significantly increased frequency of non-survival, (p = <0.001). However, NBR data suggested that children 0-4 experience the highest frequency of mortality (p = <0.001). The non-survival distributions between these two large databases accurately reflects non-survival rates in burned children.