Structural and functional assessment of the condition of wound bed using microwave dielectrometry and laser doppler flowmetry

The aim of the work was to develop and test a combined method for assessing the structural and functional features of the burn wound and periwound area with the use of microwave dielectrometry and Dopplerometry. The study was performed on twenty Wistar rats, thermal injuries from contact were created on each rat, and ten healthy animals. The assessment of the wound condition was performed 24 and 72 hours after burn injury. The study of the dielectric properties of tissues was carried out using a hardware and software complex for near-field resonant microwave sensing. From the results of our studies, it can be concluded that in the early post-injury period (within the first days), a sharp coordinated decrease in the intensity of microcirculation and dielectric permittivity is observed in the wound tissues, gradually and partially restored by the end of the third day after burning. The increased microcirculatory blood flow to the periwound area, leading to an increase in the degree of tissue hydration was observed, and as a consequence, the values of these two indices became higher. In addition, it has been shown that during thermal trauma, a regulatory imbalance of factors providing capillary blood flow around a burn wound area and surrounding tissues is formed, which is compensatory in nature and, in the absence of adequate correction, contributes to the inhibition of regeneration processes. Thus, the combination of the methods used in this study may potentially provide more specific information for a description of the structural and functional features of the analyzed tissue and their dynamics. This is clearly shown by the example of an experimental burn wound.

wound, dielectric properties, microcirculation, near-field microwave sensing, laser Doppler flowmetry