Role of cell membrane rupture in the pathogenesis of electrical trauma.

Heating due to current flow may not always be the primary cause of tissue damage in electrical injury. We have demonstrated that electric field strengths relevant to the clinical electrical injury problem are capable of permanently disrupting isolated skeletal muscle cells and altering the electrical properties of intact skeletal muscle in the absence of Joule heating effects. The field strengths used in these experiments are theoretically representative of fields at sites distant from the surface entry and exit points in many cases of electrical injury. These results provide further evidence that cell membrane disruption by large induced transmembrane potentials may explain the changes in the electrical properties of muscle observed in experimental electrical trauma (M. Chilbert, et al., J. Trauma 25: 209, 1985) and thus may contribute significantly to the extensive tissue destruction associated with electrical trauma.