"Tandir": an old and well known cause of burn injury in the Middle East.

Analysis of an unusual cause of burn injury together with assessment of long-term end results was carried out. The 'tandir' is a kind of oven buried underground and resembles a big hole full of embers and surrounded with sheet iron. Most of the burn victims were children.

Prevention of painful neuromas by epineural ligatures, flaps and grafts.

Neuroma formation at the proximal end of a divided nerve is a common problem in peripheral nerve surgery. Forty-eight nerve endings in 23 patients with traumatic or post-elective surgery amputation stumps were capped with either an epineural ligature, epineural flaps or an epineural graft. Each technique was used on 16 nerve endings.

Effects of prophylactic intravenous immunoglobulin-G therapy on humoral and cellular immune components and their functions in burned patients.

In this study on patients with thermal trauma, we examined the effects of standard therapy plus prophylactic polyclonal immunoglobulin G (IgG) treatment on humoral and cellular contents, cell phenotype and function of the immune system, and compare these with those found in patients receiving only standard therapy. The quantitative, peripheral-blood mononuclear cell panel shows a decrease in the total number of T-lymphocytes and an increase in the natural killer (NK) cells of standard therapy patients 3 weeks following the burn. We found that intravenous IgG treatment does not have an important effect on T lymphocytes and the proportion of their subpopulations, but rather causes a significant decrease in the number of B lymphocytes and an increase in the number of NK cells.