Burns due to explosions of various types of inflammable dust have been reported, including coal dust, flour and grain dust. A 33-year-old worker was burned over 33 per cent of his body surface area in a sawdust explosion. Recovery was uneventful. This is the first reported case due to this mechanism as far as we have been able to ascertain.

This survey analyses data from 17 French burn units with respect to age, severity of injury and survival of patients admitted to hospital during 1985. Of the 2398 patients treated, more than half were between 15 and 50 years old. About 90 per cent of the patients had burns covering less than 50 per cent of the body surface area. The overall mortality rate was 11.8 per cent. The LD50 for the 239...

BACKGROUND Given the contention that survival is to be expected from even the most severely burned child, then, intuitively, at least some pediatric burn victims die because of suboptimal care. The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of any adverse events that may have contributed to the death of burned children. METHODS Four surgeons with specialty training in pediatric burn care r...

OBJECTIVES Severe burns are associated with a significant loss of muscle and strength. Studies have reported that oxandrolone improves lean body mass in muscle-wasting conditions. Also shown previously in burned children is that an exercise program increases lean body mass and muscle strength. We hypothesized that oxandrolone, in combination with exercise, would increase lean body mass and musc...

OBJECTIVE Several formulas have been developed to guide resuscitation in severely burned patients during the initial 48 hrs after injury. These approaches require manual titration of fluid that may result in human error during this process and lead to suboptimal outcomes. The goal of this study was to analyze the efficacy of a computerized open-loop decision support system for burn resuscitatio...

Fluid imbalance, caused by fluid loss and changes in capillary permeability, occurs during the acute phase of burns and scalds, and the extent of the loss has been shown to depend on the body weight and surface area damaged. The blister fluid may contain protein in a concentration up to 6 g./100 ml. and sodium up to 160 mEq/l., resembling lymph and interstitial fluid in the burned patient (Cope...

Introduction Smoke inhalation is the breathing in of the harmful gases, vapours, and particulate matter contained in smoke. Smoke inhalation typically occurs in victims of fire caught in structural fires. People trapped in fire may suffer from inhalation independent of receiving skin burns. However, the incidence of smoke inhalation increases with the percentage of total body surface burned.1 I...

BACKGROUND Increased burn size leads to increased mortality of burned patients. Whether mortality is due to inflammation, hypermetabolism or other pathophysiologic contributing factors is not entirely determined. The purpose of the present study was to determine in a large prospective clinical trial whether different burn sizes are associated with differences in inflammation, body composition, ...

Mercury (Hg) stored in vegetation and soils is known to be released to the atmosphere during wildfires, increasing atmospheric stores and altering terrestrial budgets. Increased erosion and transport of sediments is well-documented in burned watersheds, both immediately post-fire and as the watershed recovers; however, understanding post-fire mobilization of soil Hg within burned watersheds rem...