Electrical stimulation in experimental wound healing in rabbits

Chronic skin wounds are frequently found in veterinary medicine routine and it becomes a challenge for clinicians. Sometimes the treatment routinely used end up failing. The electrotherapy has been indicated as an alternative to conventional treatments because of its ability to promote healing. The aim of this paper is to report an experimental study using electrical stimulation (ES) in wound healing in rabbits. It was evaluated 10 healthy New Zealand rabbits that were submitted to general anesthesia for resection of two wounds with 1cm(2) located in both sides of the back behind the scapula edge. It was determinate that the right wound would be treated by ES and the left would be used as a control, both cleaned with solution of NaCl 0.9%. The frequency used to ES was 60Hz for 10 minutes every two days, being applied by acupuncture needles in four equidistant points around the lesion, to 0.5cm from the edge. The animals were divided in one group of 15 days and another one of 8 days for treatment and macroscopic and histopathological evaluation. The results showed that the lesions treated by ES do not have significant difference in healing time. However, those treated had higher scarring macroscopic and microscopic quality than the control group. Therefore, it is possible to indicate the use of ES as a skin wounds treatment, whereas it was demonstrated to be an effective technique, easy to use and has relatively low cost.