Shichinohe R, et al. - The target of this trial was to examine the factors that affected function after a delayed excision and skin graft for hands with a deep dermal burn. The findings disclosed that the functional outcome of a burned hand in this study became degraded based on the number of days from grafting to complete wound healing. A deterioration was illustrated in the function, in the cases that underwent an escharotomy.

Methods

• The inclusion criteria were cases with only split-thickness skin grafting from the dorsum of the hand and fingers distally to at least the proximal interphalangeal joint at least 8 days after the injury.
• The hands were divided into two functional categories: Functional category A, normal or nearly normal joint movements, and functional category B, abnormal joint movements.
• A univariate analysis following a multiple regression analysis, by a stepwise selection, inspected the demographic data.

Results

• There was a prominent variation between the groups in the number of days from grafting to complete wound healing of the graft site and with or without an escharotomy in the analysis.
• These parameters served as statistically notable predictors of functional category B.