Specimen Collection and Analysis: Burn Wounds

The incidence of fire deaths in the United States has decreased from 2.5/100,000 population in 1983 to 1.7/100,000 in 1993 (1 ). In the last century, tremendous strides have occurred in the acute resuscitation of burns, permitting burn clinicians and researchers to concentrate on improving functional outcomes for burn survivors (2 ). Animal-based laboratory research has contributed to our knowledge of the pathophysiology and microvascular changes in burns (3 ), and burn wounds have figured prominently in wound-healing studies. One of the difficulties with human burn wound studies, however, has been the uncontrolled circumstance under which a patient acquires the burn wound: What was the temperature? What was the timing? What was the depth or extent?