ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION In North America, burns are one of the primary causes of injury deaths, especially in children younger than 14 years of age (1,2). Furthermore, the United States also has one of the highest per capita burn death rates of any industrialized country. Fortunately, the survival rates from burns have improved substantially in the past decadedue to advances inmodernmedical care in specialized burn centers. The advances inmedical care alongwith longer burn unit stays and the survival of thermal injury patients that previouslywould have died early have brought about an important consequence, the increase in nosocomial infections. Although most infections in burn patients are due to bacterial infections, in several retrospective and prospective epidemiologic surveys of burn units, the incidence of invasive fungal infections, especially in the severely burned patient was estimated to be approximately 10% to 21% (3).
