Burn overview
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Burn Microchapters |
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Diagnosis |
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Treatment |
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Case Studies |
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Burn overview On the Web |
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American Roentgen Ray Society Images of Burn overview |
Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1] Associate Editor(s)-in-Chief: Eman Alademi, M.D.[2]
Overview
A burn is an injury caused by heat, cold, electricity, chemicals, light, radiation, or friction. Burns can be highly variable in terms of the tissue affected, the severity, and resultant complications. Muscle, bone, blood vessel, and epidermal tissue can all be damaged with subsequent pain due to profound injury to nerve endings. Depending on the location affected and the degree of severity, a burn victim may experience a wide number of potentially fatal complications including shock, infection, electrolyte imbalance and respiratory distress. Beyond physical complications, burns can also result in severe psychological and emotional distress due to scarring and deformity.
Historical Perspective
The first case of burns was described by a psychiatrist named in the year 1901. For many decades after original description, there was little progress in defining the pathogenesis of occurred. In the 1970's, it was found that the levels of . In early 1980's major advances in. to explain the structure of found in the patients. The term was subsequently formally adopted in medical nomenclature to describe individuals of all ages with a characteristic common symptom pattern, disease course, and neuropathology.