211-216 481 tang_ PAGINA TIPO

The mortality of burn patients remains high in spite of the advances made in treating initial burn shock, controlling burn wound infection, and providing nutritional support. Smoke inhalation is recognized as a strong determinant of morbidity and mortality in burn patients, and most burn patients die because of associated inhalation injury. There are many reports on this combined injury (cutaneous burn and smoke inhalation injury = B & II) demonstrating that nutritional therapy plays the most important role in burn therapy. We have previously reported on serum amino acid flux after cutaneous major thermal injury. The present study, designed to test amino acid flux in cases of cutaneous burn injury and associated smoke inhalation, had two purposes. One was to establish an animal model in cutaneous burn and inhalation injury, and the other was to examine serum amino acid flux after B & II. Our hypothesis was that the plasma levels of amino acids would change after cutaneous burn injury and associated smoke inhalation, and that different amino acids would be affected differently. To the best of our knowledge, to date there have been no reports about amino acid flux after cutaneous thermal injury with smoke inhalation injury.