“Understanding burns”: Research project BurnCase 3D—Overcome the limits of existing methods in burns documentation

Abstract Understanding burns means knowing what is necessary for the successful treatment of burns. Nobody in science, economics, or quality control can comprehend this issue’s complexity without thorough documentation of the work involved. BurnCase 3D is a non-profit research project whose aim, achieved through software of the same name, is a thorough and accurate burn-treatment documentation schema, facilitated by three-dimensional digital models tracked over time. Adapting these models on the basis of gender, height, weight, and body shape avoids systemic errors. Superimposing photos of the burned areas on the model prevents individual error and can be combined with methods of burn-depth evaluation. The program includes automatic encoding of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Model resolution is 1 cm2 and finer, so that even small scars’ locations and extents can be documented, thus enabling registration of long-term results. The program’s status as a multilingual data-collection tool brings together multiple international efforts in data collection, and makes it suitable for e-medicine and disaster relief. In its basic form, it provides essential functions in burn documentation, photo documentation, and reporting. The four-dimensional database allows registration of interactions over time and can demonstrate the influence of location, timing, and intervention on outcome.