UMMS Affiliation

Senior Scholars Program; School of Medicine; Department of Radiation Oncology; Department of Surgery, Division of Plastic Surgery

Faculty Mentor

Janice Lalikos, MD/Plastic Surgery

Publication Date

2016-01-07

Document Type

Article

Disciplines

Plastic Surgery | Radiology

Abstract

Differentiating between superficial and deep-dermal (DD) burns remains challenging. Superficial-dermal burns heal with conservative treatment; DD burns often require excision and skin grafting. Decision of surgical treatment is often delayed until burn depth is definitively identified. This study's aim is to assess the ability of hyperspectral imaging (HSI) to differentiate burn depth.

METHODS: Thermal injury of graded severity was generated on the dorsum of hairless mice with a heated brass rod. Perfusion and oxygenation parameters of injured skin were measured with HSI, a noninvasive method of diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, at 2 minutes, 1, 24, 48 and 72 hours after wounding. Burn depth was measured histologically in 12 mice from each burn group (n = 72) at 72 hours.

RESULTS: Three levels of burn depth were verified histologically: intermediate-dermal (ID), DD, and full-thickness. At 24 hours post injury, total hemoglobin (tHb) increased by 67% and 16% in ID and DD burns, respectively. In contrast, tHb decreased to 36% of its original levels in full-thickness burns. Differences in deoxygenated and tHb among all groups were significant (P < 0.001) at 24 hours post injury.

CONCLUSIONS: HSI was able to differentiate among 3 discrete levels of burn injury. This is likely because of its correlation with skin perfusion: superficial burn injury causes an inflammatory response and increased perfusion to the burn site, whereas deeper burns destroy the dermal microvasculature and a decrease in perfusion follows. This study supports further investigation of HSI in early burn depth assessment.

Rights and Permissions

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives License 4.0 (CCBY-NC-ND), where it is permissible to download and share the work provided it is properly cited. The work cannot be changed in any way or used commercially.

DOI of Published Version

10.1097/GOX.0000000000000558

Source

Plast Reconstr Surg Glob Open. 2016 Jan 7;3(12):e591. doi: 10.1097/GOX.0000000000000558. eCollection 2015.. Link to article on publisher's site

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Plastic and reconstructive surgery. Global open

Comments

Oksana Babchenko participated in this study as a medical student as part of the Senior Scholars research program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Related Resources

Link to Article in PubMed

PubMed ID

26894016

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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