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Objectives
In an acute burn trauma the zone of stasis is vital, but may progress to coagulation necrosis. The effect of stem cell at the stasis zone was not investigated before. In this experimental study salvage of the zone of stasis is aimed by mesenchymal stem cell injection.
Materials And Method
Thirty-six Sprague-Dawley rats were used. Ten of the rats were used to prepare stem cells.
Six of the rats in the sham group were used only to take blood and skin tissue samples.
The remaining twenty rats were divided into experimental and control groups. Blood samples were taken from both groups before and three days after the thermal trauma. Burn wounds were created on both groups as described by Regas (1) (Figure 1).
Stem cells were injected subcutaneously to the stasis zone of the experimental group. Control group was given the same amount of saline solution without stem cell.
At the post burn third day in order to determine the vital tissue amount at the zone of stasis scintigraphic examination was performed (Figure 2). The uptake of the radioactive agent was expressed as a percentage of vitality (2).
Apoptosis was determined by the terminal deoxynucleotidyl-transferase-mediated deoxyuridine triphosphate-biotin nick-end labeling (TUNEL) technique. The blood samples were analysed for the cytokine levels.
Results
When the apoptosis amount for the zone of stasis compared between the experimental and control groups the apoptosis count was found to be statistically higher for the control group.
When the vital tissue percentage of stasis zone compared by scintigraphic examination for both the experimental and control groups the vitality percentage of experimental group was found to be significantly higher than the control group.
The cytokine levels did not reveal any statistically significant diffference between the groups.
Conclusion
In conclusion apoptosis investigation and scintigraphic evaluation results of this study confirms that mesenchymal stem cell treatment has a statistically significant benefit on the survival of the zone of stasis in acute burn.
References
1. Regas FC, et al. Elucidating the vascular response to burns with a new rat model. J Trauma. 1992 May;32(5):557-63.
2. Işik S, et al. Saving the zone of stasis in burns with recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator: an experimental study in rats. Burns. 1998 May;24(3):217-23.
Figure 1: Burn injury patern
Figure 2: Scintigraphic imaging