Tissue ischemia and hyperbaric oxygen treatment: an experimental study.

The results of the present experiments showed that The general post-burn edema in a scald burn model was reduced with HBO treatment and the water content in the contralateral unburned mouse ear did not statistically significantly differ from that of uninjured untreated animals. In post-ischemic skeletal muscle there was an increased water content from 5 hours to 48 hours after tourniquet ischemia of 3 hours duration. HBO treatment reduced the edema and the reduction persisted for 40 hours after the last treatment. The stores of high energy phosphate compounds were depleted after 3 hours of skeletal muscle ischemia. Repeated HBO treatments resulted in increased levels of ATP and PCr and decreased lactate levels. Reduction of phosporylase activity, a sensitive marker for muscle cell damage, is to a great extent prevented by HBO treatment in the post-ischemic phase.