Burn injury.

The pathophysiologic changes demonstrated by a burn patient basically cover the entire spectrum of surgical critical care. Management of the particular disease state is based more on the principles of prevention rather than on the treatment of complications, as the latter are frequently fatal. Although extremely complex, most of the physiological, biochemical, metabolic and immunological changes leading to these complications are predictable with reasonable knowledge of the time course of burn injury and repair. The objective of this review was not to present a detailed treatment plan, but rather knowledge of the mechanism behind postburn pathology so as to allow one to predict and in turn prevent mortality and morbidity.