Promising Strategies for the Management of Burn-Wound-Associated Pruritus

Patients who have been injured by burns often suffer from persistent and debilitating post burn pruritus. Despite a myriad of therapeutic interventions and medications, this complex condition remains particularly difficult to ameliorate. Recently, a new generation of antipruritic medications has demonstrated clinical success in managing pruritus in a number of dermatologic, nephritic and hepatic disease states, targeting unique aspects of the pruritic pathways. While specific trials demonstrating efficacy and safety are currently lacking, the purported mechanisms of action and similarities to the targeted inflammatory markers, pruritogens and neural pathways of these new medications, in concert with clinical evidence, hold promise for burn patients.