Global Hospital Infrastructure and Pediatric Burns.

Low-income regions carry the highest mortality burden of pediatric burns and attention to remedy these inequities has shifted from isolated mission trips toward building infrastructure for lasting improvements in surgical care. This study aims to investigate disparities in pediatric burn care infrastructure and their impact on mortality outcomes. The multinational Global Burn Registry was queried for all burn cases between January 2018 and August 2021. Burn cases and mortality rates were analyzed by chi-square and multinomial regression. There were a total of 8537 cases of which 3492 (40.9%) were pediatric. Significantly lower mortality rates were found in facilities with sophisticated nutritional supplementation (P < .001), permanent internet connectivity (P < .001), critical care access (P < .001), burn OR access (P = .003), dedicated burn unit (P < .001), and advanced plastic and reconstructive skills (P = .003). Significant disparities were found in the availability of these resources between high- and low-income countries, as well granular information within low-income regions. In a multinomial logistic regression controlling for TBSA, the most significant predictive factors for mortality were limited critical care availability (OR 15.18, P < .001) and sophisticated nutritional access (OR 0.40, P = .024). This is the first quantitative analysis of disparities in global burn infrastructure. The identification of nutritional support as an independent and significant protective factor suggests that low-cost interventions in hospital nutrition infrastructure may realize significant gains in global burn care. Granular information in the variability of regional needs will begin to direct targeted infrastructure initiatives rather than a one-size-fits-all approach in developing nations.

Utility of Skin Grafting and Tissue Expansion in Penile Reconstruction for the Exstrophy-Epispadias Complex.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the use of additional tissue recruited for coverage after penile lengthening in male exstrophy-epispadias complex patients using either local skin from tissue expansion (TE) or extragenital skin with a skin graft (SG) and report their respective outcomes. METHODS: An institutionally approved database of exstrophy-epispadias complex patients was retrospectively reviewed for male patients who received penile reconstruction. This included a penile lengthening procedure and the subsequent use of TE and/or a full thickness skin graft to provide cutaneous coverage of gained corporal length. RESULTS: A total of 50 patients (mean age 18.1 years) underwent penile reconstruction. TE was used in 27 patients, SG in 19, and 4 received a combination of TE and SG. The mean number of previous penile operations was 2.7 for patients that received TE and 3.1 for SG. A successful outcome from primary reconstruction was achieved in 35 patients (70%) and overall successful reconstruction was achieved by 48 patients (96%). CONCLUSION: TE and SG are useful techniques in providing soft tissue coverage following penile lengthening. TE is the preferred technique for primary reconstruction in a lengthening procedure. When genital skin is not expandable or coverage from TE is insufficient after lengthening, extragenital skin (SG) is recruited.