It is widely accepted that burns taking longer than 3 weeks to heal have a much higher rate of hypertrophic scarring than those which heal more quickly. However, some patients appear to develop troublesome and symptomatic hypertrophic scars despite healing within this 3-week period. This study shows a strong correlation between time to healing and the formation of hypertrophic scars. The risk of hypertrophic scarring was multiplied by 1.138 for every additional day taken for the burn wound to heal. Therefore, every effort should be made to get the wound healed as quickly as possible, even within the traditional 3-week period usually allowed for healing.

Read more