Burn Surgery
People who experience severe burns need the care of a trained burn surgeon, because of their specific medical concerns related to the burns. A burn patient will normally require a burn surgeon's care indefinitely and may require several burn surgeries.
Types of Burn Surgeries Include
In cases where circumferential deep burns of the chest have occurred, an escharotomy burn surgery will be required. Escharotomy helps to avoid complications brought on by inadequate chest expansion during inspiration or peripheral ischemia in the limbs. This type of surgery is normally performed immediately after admission to a burn unit and before the edema occurs.
If a skin graft procedure is require, your surgeon will take a superficial layer of the skin from an area of the body that isn't burned. The thinner the skin that is that is going to be grafted, the better the chances are that the body will accept the graft.
The idyllic skin graft is the auto-graft and the typical donor site is the thigh. Your surgeon may graft the skin as it is or use a mesh to enable multiple fenestrations, this process utilizes a special mesher machine. The biggest advantage of meshing is the stretching of the skin in order to cover a larger area than the donor site. This procedure is called a meshed graft and it produces a mosaic appearance after healing.
If the patient's circumstance does not allow auto-grafting or if there is not enough donor sites, the other option is to cover the wound by skin homo graft or another form of skin substitute.
Secondary Burn Surgery
Once the graft has healed, you may notice skin hypertrophy or thickening of the skin which will occur most often in the areas that healed on their own accord without grafting. If this happens 2-3 weeks following the healing, it is an indication that the burn was a deep 2nd degree burn. There may also be leukoderma, alopecia scalp or a variety of other scarring or abnormal pigmentation. All of which can be treated surgically and is called secondary burn surgery. Secondary burn surgery is usually performed 6 months after healing in order to allow the burn scar to be supple. This makes it less vascular and easier to control.
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