Improvement of early postburn cardiac function by use of Panax notoginsengand immediate total eschar excision in one operation

Cardiac dysfunction development in the early stage postburn has been an imp ortant problem in burn treatment. However, no effective therapies are avail able for use in clinical practice. In this study, we sought to determine wh ether early total eschar excision (EEE) in one operation and the traditiona l Chinese herb Panax notoginseng (PNS) would be helpful in improving early postburn cardiac function. 160 Wistar rats were randomly divided into burn (burn group, n = 50), burn treated with EEE (EEE group, n = 50), burn treat ed with PNS (PNS group, n = 50) groups and normal controls (n = 10). All ra ts except the normal control were given a 30% TBSA full skin thickness burn and resuscitated with Ringer's lactate. EEE was performed immediately afte r the burn group received the first intraperitoneal injection of Ringer's l actate. The wound was covered with homoskin from normal rats, In the PNS gr oup, two doses of PNS (200 mg/kg for each dose) were given intraperitoneall y immediately and 4 h postburn. Cardiac contractile function and cardiac tr oponin T (TnT) were determined at 1, 3, 6, 12 and 24 h postburn. Results sh owed that cardiac contractile parameters including AOSP, AODP, LVSP and +dp /dt(max) all declined and were still significantly lower than the control v alues at 24 h postburn. Cardiac TnT was elevated markedly and reached a lev el 25 times higher than control at 12 h postburn. In EEE and PNS groups, th e reduction of cardiac contractile function was limited as compared with th at in the burn group. Levels of TnT in both EEE and PNS groups were signifi cantly lower than in the burn group 6 h postburn later. The findings of thi s study demonstrated that both EEE and PNS were effective in improving earl y postburn cardiac function. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd and ISBI. All ri ghts reserved.