[Local treatment of burns]

Local burn care is one among the components of the total burn care. However since local wounds initiate and maintain the systemic disorders and provoke the aesthetic and functional sequellae, its significance must be stressed. The quality of the results relies upon teams trained and organized to control infection hazards in centres specifically designed. Closure of the wounds, through spontaneous healing of superficial burns or surgical techniques in deep ones, represents the aim of local care which includes the cleaning and dressing of superficial wounds and deep ones before and after grafting, with topical antibacterial (or not) agents, and also excision and grafting procedures. Today skin autografts remain the basic technique for closing deep burns. However because of the inadequacy between donor and wound areas either they must be meshed or other methods are added especially skin allografts, keratinocytes cultures or artificial skin. Local care does not come to an end when wound closure is achieved because of the lengthy rehabilitation cares such as massages, wearing of custom-fitted pressure garments, cures at specialized spas and some patients also need secondary surgery. Burn injuries remain one of the most devastating ordeal that a human being can sustain, because most of them provoke permanent and severe after-effects, whatever their extend and areas, that initial local care must aim at minimizing.