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Albumin as a predictor outcome in burn patients at Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital, Jakarta, Indonesia

Backgrounds; Nutritional status affects the mortality and morbidity rates in patients with systemic problems such as in patients with burn injury. Several methods are available to check a patient’s state of nutrition, measuring serum albumin level is one of the most effective and cost efficient way. Aside as an indicator of one’s nutritional state, serum albumin can also be used to predict other outcomes such as healing rate, length of stay, and mortality rate. Material and methods Twenty subjects are included in this restrospective study with sample taken consecutively between January 2012 to December 2012. Serum albumin levels were obtained from serial laboratory examination during the patient’s stay in the hospital. Length of stay and mortality rate were noted from the medical record. Healing rate is evaluated based on the rate of skin epithelialization and the decrease in burn area percentage, as judged from serial photos collected in the medical data. Result Among the 20 patients, 17 were men and 3 women. Average age is 30.7 year-old, with an average body weight of 60.4kg. Mean burn area was 25.4 %. Eight patients had low serum albumin level and 12 did not. The mean rate of epithelialization among patients with hypoalbuminemia was 11.2 days, and 7.8 days for patients with normal serum albumin (p = 0.0072). Length of stay was Length of stay based on albumin status was not significantly different (p = 0.87). Mortality was found to be correlated with a lower serum albumin level. Patients who survived had a median albumin 3.6 g/dL, and patients who died had a median albumin level of 2.8 g/dL (Table 6 and Diagram 5). This finding is found to be statistically significant (p = 0.009).
Keywords : burn patient, albumin, outcome