Know More About Sutures!

Posted by dunitzsantrino on March 6th, 2015

Some things like heart attacks, fractures and accidents that happen in life are unavoidable. When you are in these situations, the only thing useful is to rush the person affected to an emergency care unit as quickly as possible. As in case of most accidents, it is possible that the patient might have to undergo a surgical procedure thereby requiring suturing of the wound with a surgical suture for faster healing. To find out more about sutures, read on.

What are sutures?

A Surgical suture (commonly called stitches) is a medical device used to hold body tissues together after they have been severed either by an injury, incision or surgery, to stop excessive bleeding and aid in new skin formation. Suturing a wound generally involves using a needle with an attached length of thread. Surgical sutures must be strong and flexible so that they can be tied and knotted easily.

Types of Sutures

Absorbable sutures, also known as dissolvable sutures, are sutures which are broken down within the tissues and absorbed to the body after a period of time ranging from ten days to eight weeks. They are mainly used to hold together the internal tissues of the body but can be used on the surface of the skin as well.

The biggest advantage of using absorbable sutures is that they do not need to be removed after wound healing. Hence they are mostly used in children to avoid a second visit to the hospital.

These type of sutures vary widely in both tensile strength and time required for your body to reabsorb them. They are available with varied absorption periods like rapid absorption, regular and extended absorption required for different types of wounds. They are widely used in surgical applications in cardiovascular surgery, plastic surgery, veterinary surgery and dental surgery.

The catgut sutures made from the intestines of the sheep are one of the main types of absorbable sutures. Though major amounts of absorbable sutures are now made of synthetic polymer fibres, which may be braided or monofilament.

Non-absorbable sutures are sutures that can be permanently implanted in the body or can be removed after few days of surgery depending on the kind of surgery. These sutures are made from materials like stainless steel, polypropylene, nylon (polyamide), silk and polyester. They do not leave scars as they are less tissue-reactive. Non-absorbable sutures allow the doctor to use a much finer diameter suture material to maintain the same tensile strength over the wound and ensure correct healing.

Therefore the type of suture used on a patient totally depends on how strong the suture needs to be to properly support the incision and how quickly his body works to dissolve the material.