[Treatment of severe concomitant injuries in severely burned patients]

Over a period of almost 6 years, 18 out of 320 burn patients treated in the burn centre had sustained additional severe trauma; for the most part the trauma was due to a motor vehicle accident or a fall. The risk of overlooking such additional injuries can be minimized by systematic examination and a team approach, the same as in normal multiple-trauma patients. Apart from the burn, life-threatening complications such as intra-abdominal bleeding or haemopneumothoracic injuries are to be treated immediately. In order to facilitate appropriate burn wound care and optimize mobilization, early internal or external fixation of unstable orthopaedic injuries should be performed as soon as possible. In our experience, operations carried out within 48 h after the injury have neither led to complications in wound healing nor to osteomyelitis.