The purpose of this investigation is to better understand the wound microbiome in burn wounds and the role it plays in outcomes and complications related to treatment.
All adult patients (18 years of age and greater) admitted to or consulted by the Acute Burn Surgery service with a diagnosis of a partial thickness or full thickness burn wound determined by the Acute Burn Surgery service to be appropriate for operative intervention. We will include patients 18 years of age and older of any gender, race, prior therapy, or pre-existing medical condition. We will also include subjects in special classes, including pregnant women and cognitively impaired persons.
Children (less than 18 years of age) will be excluded. Patients who do not undergo operative therapy or patients whose operative therapy does not involve tangential excision of burn wounds will also not be eligible for inclusion by virtue of not being able to provide appropriate biospecimens. Patients whose burn wounds are isolated to the genitalia and perineum will be excluded from the study. For patients who have multiple burn wounds including those to the genitalia and perineum, it should be noted that excised tissues from the genitalia and perineum are not eligible for inclusion to the Burn Wound Data/Bio-Repository. Finally, patients whose operative intervention results in less than a total of 4 grams of discarded tissue will be excluded due to insufficient specimen for proper tissue analysis. Any tissue allocated for pathology or that has already been physically discarded into a trash receptacle will not be eligible for inclusion in the Burn Wound Data/Bio-Repository. We will also exclude prisoners from this study.