title: The evaluation of a clinical scar scale for porcine burn scars.
abstract: This study describes the evaluation of a clinical scar scale for our porcine burn scars, which includes scar cosmetic outcome, colour, height and hair, supplemented with reference porcine scar photographs representing each scar outcome and scar colour scores. A total of 72 porcine burn scars at week 6 after burn were rated in vivo and/or on photographs. Good agreements were achieved for both intra-rater reliability (correlation is 0.86-0.98) and inter-rater reliability (ICC=80-85%). The results showed statistically significant correlations for each pair in this clinical scar scale (p<0.01), with the best correlation found between scar cosmetic outcome and scar colour. A multivariate principle components analysis revealed that this clinical scar assessment was highly correlated with scar histology, wound size, and re-epithelialisation data (p<0.001). More severe scars are clinically characterised by darker purple colouration, more elevation, no presence of hair, histologically by thicker scar tissue, thinner remaining normal dermis, are more likely to have worse contraction, and slower re-epithelialisation. This study demonstrates that our clinical scar scale is a reliable, independent and valuable tool for assessing porcine burn outcome and truthfully reflects scar appearance and function. To our knowledge, this is the first study demonstrating a high correlation between clinical scar assessment and scar histology, wound contraction and re-epithelialisation data on porcine burn scars. We believe that the successful use of porcine scar scales is invaluable for assessing potential human burn treatments.
authors.affiliation: Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, University of Queensland, Royal Children's Hospital, Brisbane 4029, Australia. x.wang@uq.edu.au
authors.forename: Xue-Qing
authors.initials: XQ
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Olena
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Kravchuk
authors.forename: Pei-Yun
authors.initials: PY
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Margit
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kempf
authors.forename: Carolina V D
authors.initials: CV
authors.lastname: Boogaard
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lau
authors.forename: Leila
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cuttle
authors.forename: Julie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mill
authors.forename: Roy M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Kimble
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002056:Burns / Q000145:classification* / Q000473:pathology; D002921:Cicatrix / Q000145:classification* / Q000473:pathology; D004954:Esthetics; D005260:Female; D010781:Photography; D013552:Swine; D015599:Trauma Severity Indices; D014945:Wound Healing / Q000502:physiology