The humble stitch plays a crucial role in surgery, holding a tear together while tissue heals. Now scientists have created a type of suture that they say can help speed wound healing and reduce the risk of infection.
Researchers in China created a suture that when placed under tension – as occurs during movement – electrically stimulates the wound.
Dr. Chengyi Hou, a co-author of the research from Donghua University, said: “This electrical stimulation suture is a fully biodegradable and self-electrified material. It helps wound healing without any additional approaches, [such as] use external electrical devices.”
Electrical stimulation is known to promote wound healing through a number of mechanisms, including by promoting the migration of cells into the area.
Writing in the journal Nature Communications the team reports how the new sutures are made from a core filament of magnesium wrapped in a biodegradable polymer. It is contained in a sheath made of another biodegradable material.
The team conducted a series of experiments with the suture, involving artificial muscle fibers and rats with wounds.
The results show that when the sutures are stretched and the core moves within the sheath, its components become electrically charged – this is the same process that occurs, for example, when a balloon is rubbed on hair.
“The suture generates electricity by creating opposite charges on the suture’s middle and outer shell when muscles relax and contract, based on the triboelectric effect,” Hou said. “It generates an electric field at the wound site to accelerate wound healing.”
While movement can restrict and hinder how well traditional stitches work, this can be an advantage for the new stitches.
Through experiments in a petri dish, the team found that the rate at which cells migrated to the area around the sutures, and multiplied, increased when an electric field was present compared to when it was not, while electrical stimulation also inhibited bacterial growth reduced.
The researchers also carried out experiments in rats and found that cuts in their muscles held together with the new sutures healed faster than those stitched with regular bioabsorbable sutures, and had less bacteria – something the team notes is important to reduce the risk of post-surgery. infections.
After 10 days, the wounds were almost completely healed – in contrast to when no sutures or other types of bioabsorbable suture were used. “Tests on rats show that this suture can help wounds heal almost 50% faster by creating an electric field through the object’s natural movements,” Hou said.
The team is conducting clinical trials to test the sutures in humans, adding that the new type of suture has a similar cost to commercial absorbable sutures.
Dr Karen Wright of Lancaster University, who was not involved in the work, said the novelty of the new sutures was that a charge was generated by movement.
“In this way, the benefits are two-fold, as there is no need for external electrical application or battery-powered systems and the material is degradable in situ,” she said.
