Burn scar assessment: A systematic review of objective scar assessment tools

Purpose All deep second and third degree burns are at risk to develop hypertrophic scars which can severely undermine the quality of survival To assess the seventy of scarring several technical devices or tools have been introduced to evaluate one or more aspects of the scar, enabling comparison of different treatment protocols and allowing an objective follow up The objective of this study was to review which tools can be used in objective burn scar assessment Basic procedures The Systematic literature search involving PubMed the Web of Science (incl Science Citation Index) Main findings 51 articles with burn scar assessment as main topic were found Several characteristics of the scar can be assessed such as color metric features and elasticity but none of the available tools covers the whole aspect of the scar Especially subjective factors such as pain and itching cannot be assessed with those tools in spite of their great impact on the patient s quality of life Conclusions Scar tools enable objective and reproducible evaluation of scars which is essential for scientific studies and medico legal purposes and in selected cases for the clinical follow up of an individual patient Further studies to evaluate these tools on scars are nevertheless required (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd and ISBI All rights reserved