The early management of pediatric hand burns includes surgical treatment, medical follow up and prevention of abnormal scarring by splits and/or pressure garment therapy. The aim of this review was to find the best available evidence in the literature on the surgical part of this management. This review started with a search in the PubMed database for the keywords, hand AND/OR child AND/OR burn. Only the articles published between January 1st, 2005 and January 1st, 2011 were selected. The data were compared to French and American textbooks. Contradictory findings were reported on the timing of the excision and graft, with only two comparative studies reported, with a lot of biases. The state of the art on the initial management of hand burns in children is not totally conclusive due to the lack of statistic power in these studies, but many expert opinions help to define options for good therapeutic paradigms. It is important to include these patients in prospective protocols with both early and long-term follow-up in order to increase the amount of evidence at our disposal.
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