Dr. Madhusoodan Gupta is a board-certified Plastic, Cosmetic & Burn Surgeon. Presently he is working as a Consultant Plastic, Cosmetic, Burn & Reconstructive Surgery at Sri Sai Hospital, Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh.
Burn is a devastating and emergent situation. Hot water burn or Scald burn is the most common type of burn among all. Scald burn is difficult to manage especially in children. The challenge in treating a burned child is the changing of burn dressing. Scald Burns or burn from hot liquids such as water, tea, milk, rice water, and oil are more commonly seen in kids. The first aid after scald burn is to remove the wet cloths and wash that area thoroughly with water of normal temperature under the running tap. This will definitely decrease the intensity and degree of burn and help in further management. The second important thing is not to put any local home remedies over the burnt area. People generally apply some home remedies such as toothpaste, kapoor, coconut oil and other spices. The best is to consult a qualified Plastic surgeon as soon as possible. All these things used as home remedies cause irritation, pain and sometimes convert superficial burn into deep burn due to undergoing infections.
The Scald burn or hot liquid burn is usually a second-degree burn and if treated properly it can heal without scarring and skin color mismatch. Dressing of burn plays a very important role here. Only in cases when scald burn get infections, superficial second-degree burn changes into the deep burn and can cause hypopigmentation of skin or skin discoloration and hypertrophic scarring. We at Sri Sai Hospital have treated many scald burn children and almost all treated children had satisfying results. Also, Dr. Madhusoodan Gupta has published his original article in an international journal “Biological dressing is a paradigm shift in the surgical management of scald burn in children’’.
Biological dressing or Collagen dressing is the ideal dressing for scald burn specially in children. During the dressing this Collagen dressing makes the innermost layer over the burn area. After that other layer of dressing is applied over the collagen inner layer. Once Collagen dressing is done it will not required daily change of dressing which is most difficult task in children. Usually the change of dressing is done at every 5th day and only the outer layers have to be change, collagen layers are left unchanged over the burn area. This causes very minimal or I have to say no pain at all at the time of change of burn dressing in children. With the use of Collagen dressing for scald burn ,scarring and skin color mismatch do not occur. Almost all scald burn use to heal within 10-14 days after applying the collagen dressing. It is also scientifically proven dressing to help in burn wound healing. Lastly we have to say Collagen dressing or biological dressing is a paradigm in the management of scald burn in children.
