The effect of static magnetic field on partial thickness burn wound healing

Burn is one of the major traumas, that causes coagulative destruction of the skin. Injuries are caused by thermal damage (heat and cold), chemicals, electricity and radiation. Infections are the major cause of mortality in burn patients due to impaired normal skin barrier, malnutrition and depressed immune system functions. Early debridement and grefting of burn wound provides successful results. Due to some reasons like the situation of the patient that interfere with operation, default of intact skin for grefting, early grefting could not be always possible. In that case, in patients with extensive burn wounds, using some devices that increase the healing, would increase the morbidity and mortality, also would decrease the complications due to enfection. For these reasons wound covering materials and artificial skin derivatives are produced and tried. However, all these devices are expensive and rarely being used. In this subject experiments and resarches are being handled and searching for new solutions. For centuries scientists are investigating the effects of electromagnetic fields in biological systems. Scientific researches focused on pulsed and static magnetic fields. Organisms are electromagnetic systems that use electromagnetic fields in membrane function, transmission in nervous system and even in macromolecular interactions. It is known that non ionised electromagnetic energy concerns with physiological processes in the organism and for recent years electromagnetic fields are being used in medical treatment. During the past decades, there has been substantial and growing evidence that static magnetic fields and pulsed electromagnetic fields as alternative noninvasive methods, can both produce satisfying therapeutic effects on various disorders. Numerous animal experiments have demonstrated that static magnetic field could help promote the healing of various tissue defects, such as fresh and nonunion fracture, skin wound and ulcer, nerve injury etc. Several clinical investigations further confirmed the efficacy of static magnetic field in impaired tissue repair and pain relief. Both static magnetic fields and electromagnetic fields have positive effects in dermal healing. There have been experimental and clinical researches about the efficacy of static magnetic field in wound healing. However there is not any investigation about the efficacy of static magnetic field in burn wound healing. According to these data, in this experimental study the efficacy of static magnetic field in partial thickness burn wound in rats was investigated. We included 40 rats in the experimet and we categorised them into four groups. Twenty of these 40 rats had magnets placed (10 parallel and 10 horisontal) under the intact skin next to burn wound (group 1 and group 3). Twenty rats were the control groups that had nonmagnetic bars (10 parallel and 10 horisontal) under the intact skin next to burn wound (group 2 and group 4). The wound areas were measured on day 3 and day 7. wound healing rates were calculated. At the seventh date rats were sacrified and tissue samples were taken for histopathological investigation. In pathological investigations, the healing processeses were evaluated by scoring polymorphonuclear leucocytes (PMNL), fibroblasts and neovascularisation. Collagen production and epithelisation were recorded as negative or positive. In this experiment, in control groups (group 2 and group 4) wound healing were paused at inflamatory level, where as in magnet groups (group 1 and group 3) healing were better and passed to proliferative level. PMNL distribution were significantly lower in magnet groups (p<0.001). Fibroblast distribution (p<0,001), neovascularisation (p<0,001) and collagen production (p<0.004) were significantly higher in magnet groups. In magnet groups three (15%) subjects had epithelisation, where as in control groups there was not any epithelisation. However this result was not statistically significant due to the number of subjects in subgroups (p=0.072). In this experiment we showed that static magnetic field improves the healing rate in partial thickness burn wounds. According to these results static magnetic field can be used in clinic to promote the healing in patients with high percentage of burns. Especially, in cases that have no chance for grefting, to decrease complications and increase the survival, static magnetic field can be an alternative. The efficacy of static magnetic field in burn wounds should be investigated in experimental burn models.