Burns : journal of the International Society for Burn Injuries
-
Multicenter Study
Health related quality of life 5-7 years after minor and severe burn injuries: a multicentre cross-sectional study.
Burn injury can affect health-related quality of life (HRQL). Knowledge concerning long-term HRQL in burn patients is limited. Therefore our aim was to evaluate long-term HRQL and to study predictors of impaired long-term HRQL. ⋯ The majority of patients experienced some problems with HRQL 5-7 years post burn. This emphasizes that burns can have a negative impact on an individual's HRQL, particularly in more severely burned patients, that persists for years. The HRQL dimensions most frequently affected include pain/discomfort and anxiety/depression. Patients with a prolonged hospital stay, females and older patients are at higher risk of poor HRQL in the long-term.
-
Vascularity is an important parameter closely associated with the scar maturation. Reliable and accurate measurement of vascularity helps to monitor the scar change and adopt targeted interventions to prevent excessive scarring and achieve promising outcomes. However, there is no consensus on the assessment tools for the vascularity measurement in scars. This systematic review presents evidence on the available vascularity measurement tools. ⋯ Subjective scales are easy to use and have acceptable reliability to give a preliminary impression of the scar vascularity. Three types of objective devices are not equivalent and are mainly based on the blood flow and angiogenesis to quantify the scar vascularity.
-
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
Superiority of silver-foam over porcine xenograft dressings for treatment of scalds in children: A prospective randomised controlled trial.
Our aim was to compare two different regimens for the treatment of children with partial-thickness scalds. These were treated with either a porcine xenograft (EZderm®, Mölnlycke Health Care, Gothenburg, Sweden) or a silver-foam dressing (Mepilex® Ag, Mölnlycke Health Care, Gothenburg, Sweden). ⋯ We compared two different treatments for children with partial-thickness scalds, and the data indicate that wound healing was faster, fewer dressing changes were needed, and dressing times were shorter in the silver-foam group.
-
Little is known concerning the factors associated with in-hospital mortality of trauma patients in resource-constrained settings, not least in burns centres. We investigated this question in the adult burns centre at Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town. We further assessed whether the Abbreviated Burn Severity Index (ABSI) is an accurate predictive score of mortality in this setting. ⋯ In this specialised centre, mortality occurs in one in five patients. It is associated with a few clinical parameters, and can be predicted using the ABSI score.
-
Unintentional and intentional burn injuries vary across age groups, gender, income, and global region. In high-income countries, the trend over the last several years has been a reduction in burn incidence, burn severity, length of hospital stay, and mortality rate. However, there is a lack of data on predictors of the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of major burn survivors extending beyond a follow-up period of 10 years. ⋯ Ten years after the burn incident, the quality of life was on average comparable to the one in the general population. Multiple variables seem to influence the physical and mental long-term outcome. Herein presented data may support in adapting and designing follow-up strategies tailored to a patient's burn-specific circumstances.