ABSTRACT
Objective To study the effects of dexamethasone (DEX) and/or hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) on the subdermal vascular network (SVN).Methods SVNs were selected on dorsal skin flaps of 40 Wistar rats.The animals were divided randomly into a control group,a DEX group,a HBO group and a HBO+DEX group.Cranially based,2.5 cm?10 cm dorsal SVN skin flaps were sharply incised and elevated between the dartos and SVN,then sutured to their beds.On the 7th postoperative day,the surviving flap area was measured along with the number of new capillary,the thickness of meat tissue and the number of infiltrated neutrophilie granulocytes in the SVN skin flap.Results The mean surviving flap area for the control group was 7.90 cm~2,for the DEX group it was 10.48 cm~2,for the HBO group 15.53 cm~2,and for the DEX+HBO group it was 15.58 cm~2.The improvement in surviving flap area was highly statistically signifieant compared with the control.The improvement was also statistical- ly significant when the HBO group or HBO+DEX group was compared with the DEX group.However,no statistically significant difference was found between the HBO group and HBO+DEX group.Conclusion In a rat dorsal skin flap model,DEX or HBO improved skin flap viability,but DEX alone is not as efficacious as HBO or as DEX+ HBO.DEX plus HBO showed no additive beneficial effect over HBO alone.