Burns : journal of the International Society for Burn Injuries
-
This study sought to determine the awareness and attitude of doctors and nurses in a teaching hospital to skin donation and banking, and to identify needs for personnel educational programmes. ⋯ Knowledge transfer during health professional training on the usefulness of banked skin in patients with major burns may lead to improved attitude of health professionals and acceptance of this modality of burn management.
-
Surgical site infections (SSIs) are the most common hospital acquired infection in surgical patients, occurring in approximately 300,000-500,000 patients a year. SSIs occur across all surgical specialties, but have increased importance in abdominal, colorectal, obstetrical, gynecological, cardiac, vascular, neurological, transplant, and orthopedic procedures where either the inherent risk is elevated or the consequence of an infection would be severe. Current prevention guidelines reduce, but do not completely eliminate, the occurrence of SSIs. ⋯ Silver-nylon dressings are a useful adjunct in the prevention of SSI in colorectal surgery, neurological surgery, spinal surgery, and certain cardiovascular and orthopedic procedures. Gynecologic, obstetric, breast, transplant, neck, and bariatric procedures, and surgery in obese and diabetic patients, represent other areas where patients are at increased risk of SSI, but in which silver dressings have not been adequately evaluated yet. Recommendation is made for large prospective studies of silver dressings in these populations.
-
Review
Self-burning - A rare suicide method in Switzerland and other industrialised nations - A review.
News items reporting self-immolation by Tibetans have been on the increase in recent years. After examining the corpse of a Swiss man who had committed suicide by deliberate self-burning, we wondered how often this occurs in Switzerland. The Federal Statistics Office (FSO) does not register self-burning specifically so no official national data on this form of suicide are available. ⋯ Our results showed that, on the whole, personal aspects of self-burning in Switzerland do not differ from those in other industrialised nations. Some data, including religious and sociocultural background, were unfortunately missing - not only from our study but also from the similar ones. In our opinion, the most important prevention strategy is to make healthcare professionals more aware of this rare method of suicide.
-
Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with burns. ⋯ This is the first report of Adelaide IMipenmase (AIM) MBLs producing P. aeruginosa from Iran and also of the high prevalence of AmpC overproduction isolates. According to the results of current study, P. aeruginosa isolates producing OXA-10, TEM, VIM, PER and IMP beta-lactamases are frequent and the population structures of these isolates are highly similar.
-
Skin is a dynamic and complex organ that relies on the interaction of different cell types, biomacromolecules and signaling molecules. Injury triggers a cascade of events designed to quickly restore skin integrity. ⋯ Exogenous insulin application has therefore been investigated as a potential therapeutic intervention for nearly a century to improve wound recovery. This review will highlight the important achievements that demonstrate insulin's ability to stimulate cellular migration and burn wound recovery, as well as providing a perspective on future therapeutic applications and research directions.