Dr Sandeep B¹, Dr Ramesh Sharma¹, Dr Chris  Song¹, Peter Meier¹

¹Fiona Stanely Hospital, Perth, Australia

Abstract:

Electrical contact burns results in devastating soft tissue injuries. They require surgical debridement leading to loss of function or complete removal of the part. Even though the contact area is less, this devastation is due to increased heat production along with electroporation and protein denaturation.

In literature we can find electric burns leading to bowel gangrene, arterial rupture, tracheoesophageal fistula etc(2). Neck contact burns have been rarely reported and discussed in literature.

We report case series of electrical contact burns of neck and propose a management protocol.

Materials and methods:

Electrical contact burns cases admitted from 2015- 18 in our institute were analyzed and those who had neck contact burns where included in the study. Mode of presentation, management details including investigations and surgical outcomes were analyzed.

Results:

In the neck, trachea was most commonly involved followed by cervical spine seen in 3 patients each. Other important structures exposed were mandible border(2 cases) , esophagus(1 case), clavicle(1 case), carotid sheath(1 case).

Reconstruction was done using deltopectoral flap in 4 cases, latissimus dorsi flap in 1 case, pectoralis muscle flap in 1 case, local flap cover in 2 cases, NPWT followed by skin grafting in 1 case.

Protocol followed/ Proposed Protocol