Burn research--animal experiments.

A major burn causes in the body severe local and general alterations which last weeks or months. During the last two decades, a rapid progress of new treatment modalities, has dramatically improved burn care. With modern treatment, patients with burns covering 60-80 per cent of the body surface area can survive. Advances in treatment are based on burn research carried out in burn centers and units. Six major topics have recently been clinically and experimentally investigated: burn wound, fluid replacement, immune mechanisms, metabolism, inhalation injury and excisional therapy. A vertebrate model is essential for burn research. Before clinical use, the pathophysiology of the burn wound and the causes of immune suppression as well as new therapeutic modalities have to be first investigated at experimental level.