Burns (1993) 19, (6), 485-489 Printed in Great Britain

New laser doppler scanner, a valuable adjunct in burn depth assessment

Z. B. M. Niazi, T. J. H. Essex, R. Papini, D. Scott, N. R. McLean and M. J. M. Black

A new medical instrument is presented that producres a doppler blood flow image from a laser beam in a raster pattern and the results of a pilot study which shows this technique to be highly accurate in assessing burn depth is described.

Introdudion

In many areas of clinical medicine there is a need for both an accurate numerical measurement of skin blood flow and a pictorial representation so as to overcome the problem of spot measurements and allow assessment of the whole area. With this in mind a new instrument was developed using a scanning laser doppler technique. The scanner is controlled by an IBM-type computer which also acts as an image storing and display module. The images are displayed as colours representing a scale of blood flow. A pilot study using this scanner in adult patients with burns presenting within 24 h of the burn event is presented.

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