Burns : journal of the International Society for Burn Injuries
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Comparative Study
Prospective comparative evaluation study of Laser Doppler Imaging and thermal imaging in the assessment of burn depth.
The accurate assessment of burn depth is challenging but crucial for surgical excision and tissue preservation. Laser Doppler Imaging (LDI) has gained increasing acceptance as a tool to aid depth assessment but its adoption is hampered by high costs, long scan times and limited portability. Thermal imaging is touted as a suitable alternative however few comparison studies have been done. ⋯ LDI outperforms thermal imaging in terms of diagnostic accuracy of burn depth likely due to the susceptibility of thermal imaging to environmental factors.
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Around 10%-20% of burned patients have inhalation injuries, and the severity of these injuries is correlated with mortality. Fiberoptic bronchoscopy is an important tool for the early diagnosis of inhalation injury. This study investigated correlations between the severity of inhalation injury and outcomes of patients involved in a cornstarch dust explosion in northern Taiwan in 2015. ⋯ Although the explosion resulted in a high rate of inhalation injuries in critically ill patients, there was no significant correlation between mortality and the severity of the inhalation injuries.