Using drugs that regulate the immune system in the first hours after injury can improve survival rates and speed up treatment for children with burns, researchers at the Tyumen Medical University have found.

Burns are one of the leading causes of hospitalization among children under 4 to 5, according to scientists at Tyumen Medical University. In about 75 percent of cases, children suffer thermal injuries from scalding liquids such as boiling water, tea, soup or steam.

"Burns rank eleventh among the causes of death in children aged one to nine, and they are also the fifth most common cause of non-fatal injuries in children. Each year, more than half a million children worldwide are hospitalized with burn injuries. According to UNICEF statistics, 260 children die every day from thermal injuries and their consequences," said Sergey Sakharov, head of the Department of Healthcare Mobilization Training and Disaster Medicine at the university and a practicing surgeon.

According to him, the main cause of illness and mortality following burn injuries is infectious complications, since thermal trauma significantly weakens the body's immune defenses.

Specialists at Tyumen Medical University studied the activity of blood T-lymphocytes in young children with burn injuries. T-lymphocytes are key immune system cells — a type of white blood cell that matures in the thymus and is responsible for adaptive immunity. They identify and destroy virus-infected, bacterial, or tumor cells and regulate immune responses.

The scientists concluded that treatment of children with burn injuries using immune-regulating drugs (immunomodulators) should begin within the first hours after thermal trauma.

"Monitoring patients' immune status alongside therapy will help prevent secondary bacterial infection and accelerate wound healing or make skin transplantation more successful," the surgeon added.