Burns

Abstract

THIS review is a selection from over 14,000 articles on thermal injury published since 1964 and is concerned mainly with the pathology of the burn wound and the physiologic response to thermal injury.ResuscitationThe immediate postburn period is marked by violent and dramatic changes in the dynamics of the host circulation that result in what is known clinically as burn shock. Much of the investigative effort in recent years has gone into detailed studies of this period that readily demonstrate these changes.^{1 2 3 4 5 6 7} A precipitous drop in cardiac output — to about 50 per cent of resting normal values — . . .