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Inhalation injury combines upper airway thermal injury, lower airway chemical injury, and systemic toxin exposure (carbon monoxide, cyanide). It is the dominant modifiable driver of mortality in major burns and demands fiberoptic bronchoscopic grading, selective intubation…
Airway management in burns spans the decision to intubate, securing a technically difficult airway, timing extubation, and tracheostomy for prolonged ventilation. The dominant modern problem is…
Carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide are the systemic poisons of smoke inhalation that kill before the burn does. CO binds hemoglobin and cyanide poisons mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase, acting…
Inhalation injury is a chemical tracheobronchitis that stays clinically silent for the first 48 to 72 hours, so diagnosis cannot wait for deterioration. Fiberoptic bronchoscopy is the practical…
Mechanical ventilation is the supportive backbone of inhalation-injury care, since pneumonia and ARDS drive most respiratory deaths. Lung-protective low-tidal-volume ventilation is the default…
Nebulized and adjunctive drugs are adjuncts layered onto supportive ventilation for inhalation injury. The mainstay nebulized bundle is unfractionated heparin alternating with N-acetylcysteine and a…
Inhalation injury is airway and lung-parenchyma damage plus systemic chemical toxicity from inhaled smoke, and remains a leading driver of burn mortality. Heat injures the upper airway; toxic…