Abstract
Introduction: Understanding the relationship between surface and water temperatures, length of exposure and depth of tissue injury is crucial. When providing expert opinion on potential non-accident injury cases, the duration of the injury and the temperature of any putative causative agent is always requested.
Methods: A systematic review was performed using the electronic databases Web of Science, PubMed, Ovid Medline, PsychInfo and Embase for papers published between 1945 to 2018. We looked exclusively at original papers investigating the relationship of time and temperature in the context of depth of burn injuries using Cochrane risk of bias tool to investigate methodology of each study design.
Results: A total of eight studies met the inclusion criteria. All studies were experimental models with only one comparative human-porcine model. Both contact and scald burns were investigated. There was overall agreement in all studies. The lowest temperature was 50°C that led to mid-dermal burns with a duration of exposure of ³10 minutes. The highest temperature was 100°C that led to deep-partial thickness burns in 10 seconds.
Conclusion: This review has emphasised several factors that affect the severity of contact and scald burn injuries. It should be noted that the time-temperature relationship and threshold are dependent on one another.