A PRELIMINARY-STUDY OF SKIN ELECTRICAL INJURY WITH COMPUTERIZED IMAGE-ANALYSIS

This paper reports the application of computerized image analysis to a quantitative study of skin electrical injury in order to provide an o bjective and quantitative standard for identifying the electrical mark . The differences between antemortem and postmortem electrical injurie s were also studied. In normal and electrically-injured human skin, th e long/short axes ratio of nuclei were measured. The mean of epithelia l basal cells was 1.4344 and 5.9325, respectively, the mean of hair fo llicle cells was 1.6193 and 4.5988, respectively, and the mean of capi llary endothelial cells was 4.0229 and 4.3593, respectively. In rat sp ecimens, the long/short axes ratio of nuclei of normal skin, at 15 and 5 min ante-mortem and at 5 min postmortem injury, the mean epithelial basal cells was 1.4124, 4.5417, 5.2282 and 5.0447, respectively. The mean of hair follicle cells was 1.4140, 4.4863, 4.1146 and 4.4522, res pectively, while the mean of capillary endothelial cells was 2.8398, 3 .7514, 3.6159 and 3.6977, respectively. The results indicate that the differences between electrical injuries and normal skin with respect t o the ratios of long/short axes of the epithelial basal cell nuclei an d hair follicle cell nuclei are of remarkable significance. On the oth er hand, no significant difference could be found between antemortem a nd postmortem injuries, nor between electrical injury and normal skin, concerning the long/short axes ratios of capillary endothelial cell n uclei. This result provides a preliminary objective standard for the c hanges of electrical skin injury.