The various burn formulas for fluid therapy in the immediate postburn period have proven to be useful only in planning a program of intravenous resuscitation and in estimating the amount of local resources to be mobilized.1-3It is the individual patient's response that determines the adequacy of any intravenous therapy.1,3This response is usually measured in terms of hourly urine output, urinary specific gravity or osmolarity, hematocrits as an indication of relative plasma volume, central venous pressures, the patient's vital signs, or, more often, some combination of these. Accordingly, unless a balanced salt solution has been chosen as the sole fluid for intravenous resuscitation, it is almost always necessary to alter at frequent intervals the type of solution being administered.4 There has been a certain degree of dissatisfaction with electrolyte solutions alone, particularly for the more massively burned patient and all children.1,3The addition of colloid