Electrical Burn Injuries. An Eight-year Review.

Abstract

Electrical injuries are very aggressive pathological lesions with heavy functional and aesthetic consequences. The primary cause of their gravity is the progressive tissue necrosis that occurs with the continuous extension of wound necrosis, even leading to loss of the entire injured extremity. The goal of this study is to analyse the role of the inefficiency of the electric energy system in the incidence of electrical injuries in Kosovo during the period December 2000 to 2007 suffered by a total number of 182 patients treated in the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Pristina, Kosovo. Electrical injuries accounted overall for 17.25% of all patients admitted with burns; 35.72% of the burns were due to high voltage and 64.28% to low voltage; among the patients with contact burns the amputation rate was 28.58%, and four patients (7.14%) died. These results suggest that the aggravation of the electric energy system led to an increase in the number of patients with electrical injuries.