Assessment of burn wounds status using mid-infrared spectroscopy

Abstract

Burns are one of the major causes of morbidity and the most costly traumatic injuries worldwide. Better understanding of the molecular mechanisms associated with wound healing might provide improved clinical strategies to speed up the tissue repair process and reduce the global impact of burns on public health services. The traditional techniques used to assess the biochemical events related to wound repair are laborious, time-consuming and require multiple staining. Thus, the present study aims to evaluate the feasibility of Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy in order to monitor the progress and healing status of burn wounds. Third-degree burn injuries were induced on Wistar rats by water vapor exposure. Afterwards, biopsies specimen was extracted for further histopathological examination and spectroscopic evaluation at 4 time-points (3, 7, 14 and 21 days). Raw spectral data were offset-corrected and normalized by amide I band area. The second derivatives were compared by the Principal Component Analysis (PCA). On days 3 and 7, when compared to healthy group, biomolecules bands were most prominent. However, on days 14 and 21, these molecular bands decreased. Therefore, our pairwise comparison revealed that metabolic activity induced by thermal injury decreases as the healing process progresses. Our findings show that FTIR spectroscopy can monitor the biochemical development induced by burn injury and detect the status of wound repair.