Department of Plastic Surgery, Meir Medical Center, Kfar Sava, 4428164, Israel.
Department of Environmental Studies, Porter School of Environment and Earth Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, 6139001, Israel.
J Burn Care Res. 2024 Nov 14;45(6):1553-1565. doi: 10.1093/jbcr/irae154.
Reducing scar size after severe burn injuries is an important and challenging medical, technological, and social problem. We have developed a battery-powered pulsed electric field (PEF) device and surface needle electrode applicator to deliver PEFs to the healing dorsal burn wound in rats. The pulsed electric field was used to treat residual burn wounds caused by metal contact in rats starting 10 days after the injury for 4 months every 11 or 22 days for 4 months using varying time applied voltages at 250-350 V range, 400 mA current, 40 pulses, 70 μs duration each, delivered at pulse repetition frequency 10 Hz at 5 locations inside the wound. We found 40%-45% reduction in the scar size in comparison with untreated controls in both upper and lower dorsal locations on rats' backs 2 months after the last PEF application. We have not detected significant histopathological differences in the center of the scars besides the thickness of the newly generated epidermis, which was thicker in the PEF-treated group. We showed that minimally invasively applied PEFs through needle electrodes are effective method and device for treating residual burn wounds in the rat model, reducing the size of the resulting scars, without any adverse reaction.
减少严重烧伤后疤痕的大小是一个重要且具有挑战性的医学、技术和社会问题。我们开发了一种电池供电的脉冲电场（PEF）装置和表面针状电极敷贴器，以将 PEF 递送到大鼠愈合的背部烧伤伤口。从受伤后 10 天开始，我们使用脉冲电场治疗大鼠因金属接触而残留的烧伤伤口，持续 4 个月，每个月治疗 4 次，每次治疗 4 个月，使用 250-350V 范围内的不同施加电压、400mA 电流、40 个脉冲、每个脉冲持续 70μs、脉冲重复频率为 10Hz，在伤口内的 5 个部位进行治疗。我们发现，与未治疗的对照组相比，在上背部和下背部的两个位置，在最后一次 PEF 应用后 2 个月，疤痕大小分别减少了 40%-45%。除了新生成的表皮厚度外，我们在疤痕中心没有发现明显的组织病理学差异，而在 PEF 治疗组中，表皮厚度较厚。我们表明，通过针状电极微创应用的 PEF 是一种有效的方法和设备，可以减少大鼠模型中残留烧伤伤口的大小，而不会产生任何不良反应。
