The Metabolic Stress Response to Burn Trauma: Current Understanding and Therapies

Severe burns incur a profound stress response, which is unrivaled in terms of its magnitude and duration. Recent evidence suggests that the pathophysiological stress response to severe burns persists for several years post injury. Thus, there is a pressing need for novel strategies that mitigate this response and restore normal metabolic function in burn survivors. This is the first installment of a three-part series exploring the stress response to severe burn trauma. In this article we aim to distill the current knowledge pertaining to the stress response to burn trauma, highlighting recent developments and important knowledge gaps that need to be pursued in order to develop novel therapeutic strategies which improve outcomes in burn survivors.