Escharectomy and allografting during shock stage reduces insulin resistance induced by major burn

Evidence and Trends in Burn Wound Debridement: An Evidence Map

Treatment of the burn wound is crucial in care of severely burned patients. Surgical strategies differ in technique and timing of wound excision and are considered to have an impact on morbidity and mortality of burn patients. Most techniques and strategies have been established during the last century and are still standard of care. Nonetheless, several newer techniques have been presented and evaluated recently. To summarize the evidence and trends for eschar removal by burn wound debridement currently available, an evidence map as variant of the systematic review, was prepared. For this purpose, a systematic literature search was performed in the PubMed databases until December 2016. While overall evidence in this domain is low, recent publications focus on optimal timing of wound excision, enzymatic debridement, and hydrosurgery. Several studies report the benefit of an early wound excision in terms of shorter hospital stay, lower wound infection rate, and reduction of postburn metabolic changes. Enzymatic debridement has been shown to be an effective tool for early eschar removal and in addition reduces the need for autografting of the debrided burn wound with a relatively high level of evidence (LoE 2-). Wound debridement by means of hydrosurgery is more precise compared to conventional wound excision and preserves viable dermis, but a positive effect on wound healing or scar formation could not been shown (LoE 2). Furthermore, rarely reported techniques comprise larvae therapy, debridement by laser, and other technical adjuncts, but the level of evidence is limited (LoE 4-/5).

High phosphoserine in sepsis: panel of clinical and plasma amino acid correlations

The determination of plasma phosphoserine concentration in sepsis is uncommon, and the clinical and metabolic correlations of abnormally high phosphoserine are basically unknown. We analyzed 430 determinations of phosphoserine, other amino acid (AA) levels and ancillary variables obtained in 18 septic patients, in order to assess the biochemical and clinical correlations of changes in phosphoserine. Phosphoserine ranged between 5 and 55 micromol/L (n.v. < 12). Increasing phosphoserine was associated with higher severity of illness and death, and its best AA correlates were increasing cystathionine, 3-methylhistidine, histidine, hydroxyproline and tyrosine (r > 0.65, p < 0.001 for all). High phosphoserine seemed to cumulatively reflect kidney and liver dysfunction and enhanced proteolysis. As a collateral finding, 3-methylhistidine (a best correlate of phosphoserine) was also inversely related to nutritional AA dose (p < 0.001). These data suggest that in septic patients the determination of plasma phosphoserine may provide useful information on severity of septic illness and prognosis. The observed correlations also indirectly evidenced an impact of nutritional AA dose in moderating proteolysis.

Curbing inflammation in burn patients

Patients who suffer from severe burns develop metabolic imbalances and systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) which can result in multiple organ failure and death. Research aimed at reducing the inflammatory process has yielded new insight into burn injury therapies. In this review, we discuss strategies used to curb inflammation in burn injuries and note that further studies with high quality evidence are necessary.