The treatment of palmar contact burns in children: a five-year review.

Pediatric palmar contact burns are becoming a common trauma, especially in young children. Treatment of this kind of burn is challenging as well as controversial, regarding the choice between split-thickness or full-thickness skin graft to close the defect. The aim of this review was to evaluate the treatment algorithm at our clinic. We conducted a retrospective study including all patients 0 - 5 years of age admitted to our department from 2008 to 2012 with isolated superficial or deep partial-thickness palmar burns. The mean age was 16.1 months. In 27 cases (52.9%) we were able to close the wound conservatively. Average healing time in this group was 13.3 days. Two of these 27 patients developed flexion contractures, but none of them required additional operation. Twenty-four patients were treated using split-thickness skin graft. The average time period from the day of injury to the day of surgery was 14.2 days. Contractures occurred in 5 (20.8%) of the patients who underwent grafting, Secondary reconstruction using full-thickness skin graft was performed in all 5 of them, which represents 9.8% of all patients. We consider split-thickness grafting quick, easy and effective, with minimal to no donor site morbidity and insignificant inflammation complications. Due to reduced healing time after the actual grafting, rehabilitation can commence earlier.