In vivo transcutaneous monitoring of hemoglobin derivatives in thermally damaged skin tissue of rats using hyperspectral diffuse reflectance imaging

Abstract

We investigated the oxygenated hemoglobin concentration (C_HbO), deoxygenated hemoglobin concentration (C_HbR), methemoglobin concentration (C_metHb), total hemoglobin concentration (C_HbT), tissue oxygen saturation (S_tO₂) and methemoglobin saturation (StMet) in rat burn wound model using a diffuse reflectance spectral imaging (DRSI) method. Superficial dermal burns (SDBs), deep dermal burns (DDBs), and deep burns (DBs) were induced in rat dorsal skin by exposing the skin of approximately 20% of the total body surface area (4×10 cm2) to water maintained at 70, 78, and 98 °C for 10 second, respectively, using a Walker–Mason template. A set of spectral images for dorsal regions were acquired pre-burn and immediately post burn under anesthesia. Subsequent measurements were acquired at 24, 48 and 72 hours after injury. We found that the time courses of C_HbO, C_HbR, C_metHb, C_HbT, StO₂ and StMet have different trends depending on the depth of burn wounds. The results in this study demonstrated the feasibility of our proposed DRSI method for in vivo monitoring of hemoglobin derivatives in rat burn wound model to differentiate the burn depth groups in rats.