Managing severe burn injuries: challenges and solutions in complex and chronic wound care

Abstract

Encountered regularly by health care providers across both medical and surgical fields and an increasing socioeconomic burden globally, wound care is severely neglected. Practice is heavily influenced by anecdote rather than evidence-based protocols and industry-biased literature rather than robust randomized controlled trials. Burn units are well placed to address this considerable need, as a result of their infrastructure, their multispecialty staffing, and their need to evolve in light of the declining incidence of major burn injury in developed countries. The aim of this review is to evaluate some of the ideological and practical challenges facing wound practitioners and burn surgeons while managing chronic and complex wounds. It also includes an approach to wound assessment and how to conceptualize and implement dressing strategies and new and existing multimodal therapies.