Engineering

Materials science

Surgery

Wound care

Severe burn

Wound dressing

Dermatology

Chemical engineering

Anatomy

Self-healing hydrogels

Skin grafting

Internal medicine

Composite material

Skin transplantation

Medicine

Hyaluronic acid

Standard of care

Burn wound

Gold standard (test)

Burn injury

Wound healing

British Journal of Community Nursing

After a burn injury, skin loses its protective properties, leaving the body open to a number of complications. The gold standard treatment for burn wounds is autologous skin grafting; however, this may not always be an option, due to insufficient amounts of donor skin. Wound dressings can be used as a primary treatment in those patients who are unsuitable for skin grafting. Many different materials are used to make the dressings; current materials include hydrocolloids, alginates, hydrogels, collagen and hyaluronic acid. There is currently no gold standard of burns dressing that is universally accepted. However, hydrogels have been shown to exhibit a great number of beneficial properties and are the most favourable for use in burns patients. We discuss the use of hydrogel dressings, including their properties and clinical application.

Hydrogel dressings and their application in burn wound care