Improving acute skin-flap survival through stress conditioning using heat shock and recovery

We present our initial experience with a new method of increasing the survival of acute skin flaps through stress conditioning using heat shock and recovery. The heat-shock response is a basic form of stress response that exists on the cellular level. When cultured cells or whole organisms are exposed to supraphysiologic levels of heat, they respond by synthesizing a number of highly conserved proteins known as heat-shock proteins. These proteins have been shown to offer the cell or organism a survival advantage over nonstressed controls. The study demonstrates a significant survival advantage in acute dorsal skin flaps of Sprague-Dawley rats (p = 0.001). Study animals (n = 10) were subjected to a heating blanket set at 45 degrees C for 30 minutes and were allowed 6 hours' recovery before developing the flaps. Heat-shock protein was demonstrated in immunohistochemically stained sections of skin from the study animals but not in control animal skin (n = 14). We postulate that through stress conditioning a latent mechanism present within all cells was activated, thereby allowing the cells of our experimental flaps to better survive the stress of the acute flap model.