Dermatologists and the burn center.

Severe cutaneous disease and injury often is best treated in the specialized treatment environment of a burn center. Skilled burn treatment personnel combine critical care expertise with extensive clinical experience in the management of severe cutaneous injury and disease. In addition to thermal injury, the burn center is the ideal environment for patients with progressive toxic epidermal necrolysis, pemphigoid lesions, and invasive cutaneous infection. Recent research indicates that the burn wound is a dynamic structure whose ultimate extent is modifiable by manipulations of the local anatomic and molecular environment. The many unanswered questions on the pathogenesis and treatment of both the "medical" and "surgical" cutaneous processes require close collaboration between the dermatologist and the burn team.