Objective To validate the clinical effect of three dimensional human body scanning system BurnCalc developed by our research team in the evaluation of burn wound area.
Methods A total of 48 burn patients treated in the outpatient department of our unit from January to June 2015, conforming to the study criteria, were enrolled in. For the first 12 patients, one wound on the limbs or torso was selected from each patient. The stability of the system was tested by 3 attending physicians using three dimensional human body scanning system BurnCalc to measure the area of wounds individually. For the following 36 patients, one wound was selected from each patient, including 12 wounds on limbs, front torso, and side torso, respectively. The area of wounds was measured by the same attending physician using transparency tracing method, National Institutes of Health (NIH) Image J method, and three dimensional human body scanning system BurnCalc, respectively. The time for getting information of 36 wounds by three methods was recorded by stopwatch. The stability among the testers was evaluated by the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC). Data were processed with randomized blocks analysis of variance and Bonferroni test.
Results (1) Wound area of patients measured by three physicians using three dimensional human body scanning system BurnCalc was (122±95), (121±95), and (123±96) cm
2, respectively, and there was no statistically significant difference among them (
F=1.55,
P>0.05). The ICC among 3 physicians was 0.999. (2) The wound area of limbs of patients measured by transparency tracing method, NIH Image J method, and three dimensional human body scanning system BurnCalc was (84±50), (76±46), and (84±49) cm
2, respectively. There was no statistically significant difference in the wound area of limbs of patients measured by transparency tracing method and three dimensional human body scanning system BurnCalc (
P>0.05). The wound area of limbs of patients measured by NIH Image J method was smaller than that measured by transparency tracing method and three dimensional human body scanning system BurnCalc (with
P values below 0.05). There was no statistically significant difference in the wound area of front torso of patients measured by transparency tracing method, NIH Image J method, and three dimensional human body scanning system BurnCalc (
F=0.33,
P>0.05). The wound area of side torso of patients measured by transparency tracing method, NIH Image J method, and three dimensional human body scanning system BurnCalc was (169±88), (150±80), and (169±86) cm
2, respectively. There was no statistically significant difference in the wound area of side torso of patients measured by transparency tracing method and three dimensional human body scanning system BurnCalc (
P>0.05). The wound area of side torso of patients measured by NIH Image J method was smaller than that measured by transparency tracing method and three dimensional human body scanning system BurnCalc (with
P values below 0.05). (3) The time for getting information of wounds of patients by transparency tracing method, NIH Image J method, and three dimensional human body scanning system BurnCalc was (77±14), (10±3), and (9±3) s, respectively. The time for getting information of wounds of patients by transparency tracing method was longer than that by NIH Image J method and three dimensional human body scanning system BurnCalc (with
P values below 0.05). The time for getting information of wounds of patients by three dimensional human body scanning system BurnCalc was close to that by NIH Image J method (
P>0.05).
Conclusions The three dimensional human body scanning system BurnCalc is stable and can accurately evaluate the wound area on limbs and torso of burn patients.
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