Burn Wound Healing: Clinical Complications, Medical Care, Treatment, and Dressing Types: The Current State of Knowledge for Clinical Practice

Abstract

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), it is estimated that each year approximately 11 million people suffer from burn wounds, 180,000 of whom die because of such injuries. Regardless of the factors causing burns, these are complicated wounds that are difficult to heal and are associated with high mortality rates. Medical care of a burn patient requires a lot of commitment, experience, and multidirectional management, including surgical activities and widely understood pharmacological approaches. This paper aims to comprehensively review the current literature concerning burn wounds, including classification of burns, complications, medical care, and pharmacological treatment. We also overviewed the dressings (with an emphasis on the newest innovations in this field) that are currently used in medical practice to heal wounds.

Design of 3D Hybrid Plant Extract/Marine and Bovine Collagen Matrixes as Potential Dermal Scaffolds for Skin Wound Healing

“…Burns are the most devastating form of trauma that has afflicted humankind since antiquity and their short- and long-term consequences leave severe sequelae in the patients concerned [ 1 ]. The second half of the 20th century saw the intensive development of regenerative medicine, burn therapy, and pharmacotherapy, involving the use of tissue scaffolds for the formation of new viable tissue and thereby reducing the reliance on donor tissue and organs [ 2 ]. However, immunogenicity, postoperative infections, and restriction of donor sites limit the use of conventional skin substitutes [ 3 ].…”

The Use of Acellular Fish Skin Grafts in Burn Wound Management—A Systematic Review

“…Burn wound healing and management as a complex and long-lasting process continues to represent a major challenge for patients and health care providers resulting in considerable socio-economic burdens [ 1 , 2 ]. In deep dermal and full-thickness burn injuries, early excision and application of split-thickness skin grafts is the established main treatment option to achieve early wound closure and avoid common complications such as sepsis, multi-organ failure and acute kidney injury [ 2 , 3 ]. However, split-thickness skin grafting may not be possible, e.g., in extended burns with limited donor skin availability [ 4 ].…”

“…Medicina 2022, 58, 912 2 of 12 A variety of dressings are currently available for superficial partial-thickness burns, such as silver-impregnated, alginate, hydrocolloid, hydrogel, silicone-coated nylon, polyurethane film or biosynthetic dressings, without a gold standard being defined [5]. The main components of a complication-free treatment to be targeted via dressing application are improvement and acceleration of the wound healing process, prevention of potential colonization with pathogenic biofilms, or the reduction of necessary dressing changes [2,6].…”

Crosslinked Collagenic Scaffold Behavior Evaluation by Physico-Chemical, Mechanical and Biological Assessments in an In Vitro Microenvironment

“…At a glance, it seems frail and slender, but its importance in our homeostasis is more than skin deep. Being the largest organ of our body, and a key component of the innate immune system, it plays the role of infantry in numerous cases, either against common invaders, such as UV radiation [1], superficial disruptions, allergens [2], heat [3] and various chemicals, or against far more elaborate attacks, such as burns [4,5], microbial infections and complications during wound healing processes [6,7]. Each type of attacks can make headway via its own route, leading to inflammation, irritation, skin tissue disruption, and, to top it off, this dysfunctional environment provides perfect conditions for microbial proliferation, which can lead to sepsis and permanent tissue damage.…”