Local changes in membrane potential intensify neutrophil oxidative burst.

The aim of this paper is to study the effects of the pulsed electrical field/current alone or combined with ionomycin, fMLP and PMA, the chemical stimuli that operate through distinctly different activation pathways, on the time course of the oxidative burst response in human neutrophils. Neither the control groups nor the neutrophils treated with electrical field alone showed any increase in oxidative burst activity measured by the luminol-enhanced chemiluminescence technique. It was found that electrical treatment potentiates chemically induced activation with either of the chemical stimulators used.

Effects of transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) on spasticity in patients with hemiplegia.

The effect of afferent cutaneous electrical stimulation on the spasticity of leg muscles was studied in 20 patients with chronic hemiplegia after stroke. Stimulation electrodes were placed over the sural nerve of the affected limb. The standard method of cutaneous stimulation, TENS with impulse frequency of 100 Hz, was applied.

Electric treatment of human melanoma skin lesions with low level direct electric current: an assessment of clinical experience following a preliminary study in five patients.

In this study we have investigated the effects of negative low level direct electric current electrotherapy (current: 1 milliampere; treatment time: 30 minutes) in metastatic or primary melanoma skin lesions. After 12 applications in five patients, tumour regression was observed in all evaluable melanoma skin lesions; four of them were classified as partial responses. This study shows that locally applied electrotherapy with a negative low level direct electric current is an effective treatment that results in reduction of tumour mass of human melanoma skin lesions, and it is possible that it has a positive influence on the course of the metastatically disseminated melanoma.

Treatment of chronic wounds by means of electric and electromagnetic fields. Part 2. Value of FES parameters for pressure sore treatment.

Subjects with spinal cord injury are often distressed by pressure sores, which usually appear after prolonged pressure (wheelchair, bed) across the soft tissue which has already lost sensibility and has diminished microcirculation. The healing ability and its dynamics depend on the state of the subject's overall health. Consequently, evaluation of a particular treatment requires careful consideration of as many as possible of the parameters relevant to healing and an adequate criterion for assessing the state of the pressure sore.

Pulsed electric current enhances the phorbol ester induced oxidative burst in human neutrophils.

Oxidative burst (OB) response in human neutrophils, measured with chemiluminescence (CL), has been used to determine whether pulsed electric current (PEC) might induce a functional response in these electrically nonexcitable cells, and also whether it might modify cellular response to tumor-promoting phorbol ester (PMA). Five minutes of PEC treatment caused no significant changes in neutrophil CL levels in HBSS (1.2 mM Ca2+ concentration) as well as in HBSS-EGTA, where the extracellular Ca2+ concentration was reduced to less than 30 nM.