An unusual cause of septicemia and death in a burn patient: discussion and review.

Abstract

Sepsis remains a common source of morbidity and mortality for seriously burned patients. Sources of sepsis are varied, although some are dramatically more common than others. Rarely, the burn surgeon may be confronted with an infectious source that remains unelucidated until postmortem examination. This case report describes the hospital course and subsequent death of a severely burned patient with sepsis, the source of which was only discovered on postmortem examination by our county medical examiner.