Long Hair, Smoking, and Deep Facial Burns

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to describe deep facial burn injuries by cigarette lighters in longhaired adults and to report our experience in their treatment. Eight consecutive cigarette lighter burn victims are treated in the Helsinki Burn Center in the year 2006. Seven of the patients were women; their mean age was 50 years. All were under the influence of alcohol at the time of injury. The mean burnt area was 3.5% TBSA. The burnt areas were primarily forehead, cheek, and ipsilateral ear. After a conservative treatment, all the patients underwent an operation, whereby the nonhealing burns were excised and covered with autologous split thickness skin grafts. Postoperative period was uneventful in all the patients. Besides having severe detrimental effects on general health status and wound healing, smoking is the leading cause of residential and total fire deaths worldwide. The patients in this article suffered deep facial burns because of cigarette lighters.

Alcohol use and smoking in burn patients at the Helsinki Burn Center

“…Studies reporting smoking at burn are rare. However, in clinical practice we know that lighting a cigarette may put a person in higher risk for burn, especially if a person has long hair or is intoxicated [23]. We did not find studies reporting the complications of burn treatment related to both alcohol and smoking, but Bohn et al [19] investigated the complications of surgery among orthopedic patients with, for instance, the Drinkcheck questionnaire, a version of AUDIT screening also for tobacco use.…”

Fur or Fire: Was the use of fire the initial selection pressure for fur loss in ancestral hominins?

“…Given that the face is particularly hairy in men, and beards accumulate much of spillage beard fires would be particularly dangerous, even if less likely. There are examples of people dying from beard fires in historical ("Certain accursed ones of no significance," 2011) and in modern times (Koljonen, 2008) (Unknown, 1949) (Unknown, 1973). The naked part of the face and the eyes are however, particularly sensitive to radiant heat (Tannam, 2012) and this could partially explain the continuation of facial hair despite almost complete loss of body hair.…”