Burns : journal of the International Society for Burn Injuries
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Palmar burn injuries are common in young children and can result in contracture. ⋯ Early and intensive splinting following palmar burn results in excellent ROM. Burns involving more CFUs or the first webspace are associated with ESC.
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First aid cooling for burn injuries improves re-epithelialisation rates and reduces scarring. The objective of this research was to explore and describe barriers and facilitators to the provision of optimal first aid for acute burn patients in the prehospital setting. Emergency medical service (EMS) clinicians in Queensland were invited via email to participate in a survey designed to assess experience, knowledge, and attitudes regarding provision of optimal burn first aid in the prehospital setting (N = 4500). ⋯ The most common of these was identified as pain. Similarly, free text responses (n = 276) regarding facilitators of burn first aid formed eight dimensions with 21 subcategories - most commonly fast and effective pain relief. Factors influencing burn first aid provision in the prehospital setting were wide-ranging and varied, with pain identified as the most prominent.
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Scarring after burn injuries remains one of the major challenges in burn medicine and is the subject of current research. Accurate and high-quality assessment of scars is needed to enable exact outcome evaluation of different treatments. Our aim was to evaluate the most common subjective scar evaluation scores-the POSAS (Patient and Observer Scar Assessment Scale) and VSS (Vancouver Scar Scale)-in comparison with the objective device Mexameter® for colour evaluation. ⋯ In this study, we were able to show on a relatively large patient population that with the Mexameter®, the subjectivity of the scar colour assessment by examiner/patient can be overcome, but precise differentiation can still be ensured with subjective evaluation tools. We further introduced a novel Mexameter® Scar Scale. It is necessary to further investigate the vast range of objective devices and develop scar panels for with an incorporation of objective and subjective devices to further improve reliability with reduced bias in terms of scar assessment.
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The Linkoping burn centre in Sweden has, even though being a high income country, reported high burn wound infections (BWI) frequencies in scalded children compared to similar populations in other parts of the world. ⋯ The reporting of criteria and diagnosis of burn wound infection is highly variable making it difficult to interpret results and come to conclusions. The high frequency of BWI at the centre might be a result of close monitoring due to study participation, use of clean instead of sterile routine at dressing changes or low thresholds for the diagnosis in respect to changes in infection markers.