A dynamic study of the thermal components in electrical injury mechanism for better understanding and management of electric trauma: an animal model.

The thermal effects of acute electric trauma to living cells show some variation patterns and kinetics for different body components (muscle, bone, blood-vein and skin). Thermal energy transfer is random with no preferred directions, but electrical energy transfer is vectorial in the direction of the current. In the present study, a total 50 white male Wistar Albino rats, body weight 250-300 g, have been used to study electrical injury mechanism with subsequent change in muscle perfusion at different post-traumatic stages. The muscle temperature was found to increase with a sudden jump from 35.3+/-1.2 to 75.2+/-7.6 degrees C. The bone temperature increased from 35.2+/-1.4 to 45.8+/-1.2 degrees C and decayed slowly within 600+/-90 s. The venous blood curves show a similar pattern to that of muscle with a sudden jump of temperature from 36.4+/-.9 to 40.5+/-3.1 degrees C. The core temperature showed a flat pattern with a slight increase from 36.1+/-0.8 to 37.3+/-0.6 degrees C and the peak temperature was found after 70+/-10 s. From the scintigraphic study, muscle perfusion was found to be a minimum 72 h after electric shock. The right hind limbs of all the rats (ground) exhibited more intense histopathological damages (electric burns) than the left fore limb (source).