Surgical Treatment in Acute Phase of Severe Burns - a Comprehensive Approach.

Major burn is considered the most severe type of injury, with high mortality risk and poor quality of life prognosis for survivors. Appropriate burn wound management may require multiple treatment modalities, with specifi c sequencing particular to each patient, addressing every injured area depending on burn surface and depth, patient's general status and also available infrastructure and burn center resources. Early excision of burn eschar and grafting with autologous split-thickness skin grafts remains the universal standard of surgical burn care in acute phase. Ongoing research is conducted for developing new skin substitutes that meet the ethical, safety effi ciency and economical criteria in order to obtain adequate wound coverage when autologous skin grafts are not available. Each severe burned patient represents a complex case, requiring long-term multiple-stage and interdisciplinary treatment, adequate rehabilitation and follow-up program to obtain optimal functional results and socio-professional reinsertion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]