Severe burns from viral TikTok challenge involving candied sugar: A case series report

Burn injuries rank among the top five most common non-fatal injuries within the paediatric population. Scald injuries continue to be the leading cause of burn in the children, closely followed by contact burns, particularly in the six to 16 age group. Recently, there have been increasing reports of children sustaining scald and contact burns, after attempting to replicate videos viewed on social media platforms such as TikTok and YouTube.

A recent trend of heating sugar and water in a plastic container within the microwave to make candied fruit is resulting in children and adolescents presenting with deep burns. The plastic container becomes so hot that it melts causing the hot sugar water and plastic to drip onto the child. There has been an increase in presentations to all burn centres throughout Australia resulting from this mechanism.

Method

A retrospective chart review was undertaken of six children presenting with toffee burns that attended the Pegg Leditschke Children’s Burns Centre at the Queensland Children’s Hospital over a period of four weeks.

Result

Six children presented with similar burns and were treated within the specialist burns centre. The lower limb was affected in four cases while two cases sustained burns on the hand. Skin grafts were required in two cases and four children continue to require long term scar management.

Conclusion

Social media plays an important role in our children’s lives however mimicking videos can result in increased risk of serious physical and psychological harm occurring. How to make candied sugar has gone viral causing numerous burns throughout Australia. While we do not want to restrict children from watching and participating with these videos, we require parents and moderators of these videos to ensure these videos are performed in a safe environment to decrease risks of injury occurring.