A new model for the standardization of experimental burn wounds

•We describe an experimental burn apparatus associated with a fixation technique.•Apparatus permits precise temperature control.•Fixation technique allows for constant pressure during burn.•It is possible to create wounds of different depths and diameters.•Simple, safe, fast, and low-cost method produces reliable and consistent burn wounds.

BackgroundBurns are common and recurrent events treated by physicians on a daily basis at most emergency rooms around the world. There is a constant need to understand the physiopathology of burns, so as to minimize their devastating results. The objective of the present report is to describe a burn apparatus in association with an innovative method of animal fixation, as to produce burns of varying sizes and depths.MethodsRats were subjected to burns of 60 °C, 70 °C, and 80 °C for 10 s and after 3 days half of the rats in each group were killed and the resulting lesions were analyzed using histological techniques. In the other half of the rats the wound was measured weakly until complete re-epithelialization.ResultsAll burns were easily visible and the histological feature for the 60 °C burn was a superficial second-degree burn (28% of the dermis), for 70 °C we observed a deep second-degree burn (72% of the dermis), and in the 80 °C group, a third degree-burn was present (100% of the dermis).ConclusionsThis is a safe, reliable, easy to construct and use model that has the ability to produce a regular and uniform reproducible burn due to precise temperature control associated with standardized animal positioning.