A novel model of skin electrical injury

Abstract

High voltage electrical burns can cause devastating third and fourth degree burns. The pathophysiology of electrical injury is not well understood. We have developed an Electrical Burn Delivery System (EBDS) capable of reliably delivering pre-set voltages and currents to biological specimens in order to accurately simulate the damage from high-tension electrical contact. In addition to the high voltage delivery the system can also measure skin impedance before and after shock. Two different imaging techniques were used for non-invasive assessment of skin damage pre and post shock. A thermal camera was used to monitor the extent of thermal damage due to the electrical shock, while hyper-spectral imaging was used to monitor wavelength dependent differences in total reflectance. We present results of experiments conducted on freshly excised human skin samples as well as porcine skin samples. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.