Prognostic significance of abnormal neutrophil chemotaxis after thermal injury.

Neutrophil chemotaxis was studied sequentially in 23 thermally injured patients and 23 normal volunteers. The average age of the burn victims was 48 years (range, 21-87) and mean total body surface area burned was 33% with a mean full-thickness component of 16%. Chemotaxis was measured under agarose since this test system allowed the chemotactic generating ability of the patients' serum to be evaluated as well as the chemotactic capability of the neutrophils. In excess of 800 determinations were performed on the burned patient population. Eighty-three per cent of the patient population had a decrease in chemotaxis two standard deviations below normal at some time during the hospital stay, in most patients three or more days postburn. This chemotactic defect appeared to be unrelated to the presence of a chemotactic factor inactivator. There was no statistically significant correlation between the development of abnormal chemotaxis and sepsis or mortality in this patient population.