Detection of Intravenous Infiltration in the Posterior Ear of the Rabbit Using Bioelectrical Impedance: Pilot Study

Jaehyung Kim, Beumjoo Shin, Mansup Lee, Yongjin Kim, Ihnsook Jeong, Gyerok Jeon

Early detection of infiltration is essential to minimize the injuries caused by infiltration. This is one of the most important tasks for nurses infusing intravenous (IV) solution or medications into the blood vessels. In this paper, infiltration phenomena were studied as a function of frequency and time using a bioelectrical impedance analyzer. When IV solution was properly infused into the vein on the back of rabbit, the impedance parameters (impedance, resistance, reactance, and capacitance) measured at five injection sites showed almost similar behavior with very slight standard deviations. On the other hand, the impedance parameters were significantly different before and after infiltration during infusing IV saline solution at the rate of 4 drops per minute into the small vein in the posterior ear of the rabbit. This is because the ears of the rabbit are thin and the vein is narrow so that IV solution temperately penetrates into the skin or subcutaneous tissue at infiltration and does not accumulate well thereafter. These studies may be applicable to infiltration studies in neonates with very small blood vessels.