Pediatric palm contact burns: a ten-year review

Management and proper approach to pediatric palm burns remains unclear. Our burn center's approach includes early, aggressive range of motion therapy, combined with a period of watchful waiting, reserving grafting only for those palms that do not heal in a timely manner. We reviewed our experience using this approach over a 10-year period. We performed a retrospective review of all pediatric patients with palm burns admitted to our burn center from 1994 to 2004. A total of 168 patients (194 palms) were included in the study. The average patient was 1.3 years old. A total of 168 of the injured palms (87%) healed without need for surgery. The average time to healing was 13 days (range 5-34). The 19 patients (26 palms, 13.4%) who underwent excision and grafting were managed with thick split thickness skin grafts. Of these, four patients (five palms, 19.2%) underwent secondary reconstruction, at an average of 166 days after the initial surgery. Of the 168 (87%) palms managed without surgery, only three patients (four palms) required late reconstruction (2.4%). Reconstructive procedures consisted of full-thickness skin grafts (n = 7) and z-plasty (n = 2). We have found that the majority of patients in this study healed without need for acute or reconstructive surgery. We therefore recommend aggressive hand therapy and conservative surgical management of palm burns in children.