The First 24 Hours: Burn Shock Resuscitation and Early Complications.

Resuscitation is required for the management of patients with severe thermal injury. Some of the initial pathophysiologic events following burn injury include an exaggerated inflammatory state, injury to the endothelium, and increased capillary permeability, which all culminate in shock. Understanding these processes is critical to the effective management of patients with burn injuries. Formulas predicting fluid requirements during burn resuscitation have evolved over the past century in response to clinical experience and research efforts. Modern resuscitation features individualized fluid titration and monitoring along with colloid-based adjuncts. Despite these developments, complications from over-resuscitation still occur.

Evaluation of healing outcomes combining a novel polymer formulation with autologous skin cell suspension to treat deep partial and full thickness wounds in a porcine model: a pilot study.

Autologous skin cell suspensions (ASCS) can treat burns of varying depths with the advantage of reduced donor site wound burden. The current standard primary dressing for ASCS is a nonabsorbant, non-adherent, perforated film (control) which has limited conformability over heterogeneous wound beds and allows for run-off of the ASCS. To address these concerns, a novel spray-on polymer formulation was tested as a potential primary dressing in porcine deep partial thickness (DPT) and full thickness (FT) wounds. It was hypothesized that the polymer would perform as well as control dressing when evaluating wound healing and scarring. DPT or FT wounds were treated with either a spray-on poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) and poly(lactide-co-caprolactone) (PLCL) formulation or control ASCS dressings. Throughout the experimental time course (to day 50), we found no significant differences between polymer and control wounds in % re-epithelialization, graft-loss, epidermal or dermal thickness, or % dermal cellularity in either model. Pigmentation, erythema, elasticity, and trans-epidermal water loss (TEWL), were not significantly altered between the treatment groups, but differences between healing wounds/scars and un-injured skin were observed. No cytotoxic effect was observed in ASCS incubated with the PLGA and PLCL polymers. These data suggest that the novel spray-on polymer is a viable option as a primary dressing, with improved ease of application and conformation to irregular wounds. Polymer formulation and application technique should be a subject of future research.