An Evaluation of the Ability of the Peripheral Vasodilator Buflomedil to Improve Vascular Patency after Acute Frostbite

The extent to of microvascular damage from frostbite can be accurately demonstrated by vascular microcorrosion casting techniques Daum et al. In this investigation. the peripheral vasodilator buflomedil was evaluated for its ability to ameliorate microcirculatory damage from acute experimentally induced freeze injury. This drug has been reported to decrease tissue loss in human frostbite patients when given intravenously during thawing. In seven groups of anesthetized rats, left hindpaws were cooled to heat of fusion cooling continued until the temperature in the footpads fell to -15C. Prior to cooling, group one received a tail vein injection of 1m1 salinekg while group two received 10mg buflomedilkg. Immediately following cooling, group three received an injection of 10mg buflomedilkg. Hindpaws were rapidly rewarmed in a 40C bath. During rewarm, left hindpaws from group four were immersed in deionized water, from group five in 24mg buflomedil in deionized water, from group six in 30 dimethyl sulfoxide Me2SO and from group seven in 24mg buflomedil in 30 Me2SO. Keywords Scanning electron microscopy.