[Attaching importance to molecular imaging techniques and promoting precision diagnosis in burns]

The explosive growth and advancement of computer science in recent decades have prompted the rapid development and wide applications of imaging techniques in life science, which have brought about revolutionary changes in modern medicine. Nowadays, it is possible to visualize multiple physiological and disease processes, precisely and non-invasively, in a living human body. Modern medicine has even started"reading the mind", to diagnose psychology, behavior and degenerative disorders of human brain. The border between the organic and inorganic diseases in old dogma is disappearing because imaging techniques have"visualized"the neurological and tissue changes of inorganic disorders. Severe burn injury is associated with very complicated pathological processes, which are always at the borderline between life and death. Complete recovery of patients with severe burn injury, if possible, may take years of time. Hence, a real-time monitoring of the disease process is of pivotal importance in early recognition and prevention of life-threatening complications and in assessing the therapeutic efficacy for a less-eventful recovery. Here we review and introduce some potential applications of modern imaging techniques in burn care and research, which may benefit burn patients. Some techniques are still in their early or pre-clinical stage and some are mature techniques in other fields of medicine, which are potentially applicable in burn diagnosis and treatment through our research. We intend to bring your interest to this field which may eventually lead to new revenues improving our clinical work on burn victims.