Principles and Practice of Burn Surgery

With an overall incidence of more than 800 cases per 1 million persons per year, only motor vehicle accidents cause more accidental deaths than burns. Advances in trauma and burn management over the past three decades have resulted in improved survival and reduced morbidity from major burns. Twenty-five years ago, the mortality rate of a 50% body surface area burn in a young adult was about 50%, despite treatment. Today, that same burn results in less than 10% mortality. Ten years ago, an 80 to 90% body surface area burn yielded 10% survival. Today, over 50% of these patients survive.

Nevertheless, although burn injuries are frequent in our society, many phy- sicians feel uncomfortable managing patients with thermal injuries. Excellent textbooks about the pathophysiology of thermal injury and inhalation injury have recently been published. All new data produced by active research in the field of burn and trauma can be found in these books. Yet, the state-of-the-art tech- niques in the day-to-day care of burn patients—either as outpatients, in the operat- ing room, or in the burn intensive care unit—have yet to be outlined in a single volume.

Download here: Principles and Practice of Burn Surgery