Application of early necrectomy of a deep skin burn on rats with acute radiation syndrome of mild severity

Abstract

The involvement of countries possessing nuclear weapons in local and regional armed conflicts poses a threat of use of nuclear weapon. In the case of this combined radiation injuries can make up to 70% of sanitary losses. The existing ideas about the methods of surgical treatment of combined radiation-thermal injures are contradictory and do not clearly provide procedure depending on the severity of injury or in non-classical forms of injury. The idea of the study was to estimate the effectiveness of performing an early necrectomy of a burn eschar after a two-factor injury, which includes modeling mild acute radiation syndrome in addition to a thermal burn on rats. A deep skin burn was simulated with hot water over an area of 10% of the body surface after total γ-irradiation at a dose of 3 Gy. Then after 3 h the burn eschar necrectomy was performed. It was established that the chosen method of surgical treatment of a deep burn significantly aggravates the severity of irradiated animals, which is manifested by the death of more than 50% of rats in the first 4 days after necrectomy. The operative trauma became the leading component of the combined injury formed and determined the severity of its course. Thus, the burn eschar necrectomy modifies a light two-factor radiation-thermal injury to a classic combined radiation injury. Despite the severe postoperative period, necrectomy significantly accelerates the healing of burn wounds in irradiated animals. This indicates the promise of finding methods for compensating abnormalities developing in the postoperative period in order to accelerate wound healing before the onset of radiation sickness and prevent infectious complications.