medicina Review Technical and Medical Aspects of Burn Size Assessment and Documentation Michael Giretzlehner 1,*, Isabell Ganitzer 1 and Herbert Haller 2 1 Research Unit for Medical Informatics, RISC Software GmbH, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Upper Austrian Research GmbH, A-4232 Hagenberg, Austria;
[email protected] 2 Trauma Hospital Berlin, Trauma Hospital Linz (ret), HLMedConsult, A-4020 Leonding, Austria;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected] Abstract: In burn medicine, the percentage of the burned body surface area (TBSA-B) to the total body surface area (TBSA) is a crucial parameter to ensure adequate treatment and therapy. Inaccu- rate estimations of the burn extent can lead to wrong medical decisions resulting in considerable consequences for patients. These include, for instance, over-resuscitation, complications due to fluid aggregation from burn edema, or non-optimal distribution of patients. Due to the frequent inaccurate TBSA-B estimation in practice, objective methods allowing for precise assessments are required. Over time, various methods have been established whose development has been influenced by contemporary technical standards. This article provides an overview of the history of burn size estimation and describes existing methods with a critical view of their benefits and limitations. Traditional methods that are still of great practical relevance were developed from the middle of the 20th century. These include the “Lund Browder Chart”, the “Rule of Nines”, and the “Rule of Palms”. These methods have in common that they assume specific values for different body parts’ surface as Citation: Giretzlehner, M.; Ganitzer, a proportion of the TBSA. Due to the missing consideration of differences regarding sex, age, weight, I.; Haller, H.