Why The Human Body Can Absorb Surgical Sutures

In surgery, sutures are often used. The sutures for blood vessels, nerves, organs, etc. in the body are made of materials that can be absorbed by the human body, so that there will be no trouble of removing the stitches after the surgery. So what kind of material can be used as a suture thread? Why can the human body absorb them?

In the past, the suture traditionally used in surgery is called catgut, which is a thread made of animal protein. It is not unfamiliar that protein can form fibers, like wool and silk are protein fibers. In the human body, protein can be digested. For example, people usually consume protein from foods such as meat, fish, chicken, duck, etc. Through a kind of proteolytic enzyme, the high molecular weight in the protein is broken down into small molecules, which are then used by the human body. Digestion and absorption.

However, when suture the wound with catgut suture, the patient often feels swelling and painful. It turns out that the human body contains various enzymes. Enzymes are a kind of biocatalyst, which can speed up the decomposition of catgut. Before the patient's organs and blood vessels grow well, the catgut begins to decompose and the strength gradually decreases. When the organs and blood vessels move, the catgut will relax. In this way, the wound that has not healed will of course have bursts of pain at this time. Therefore, catgut is not an ideal surgical suture.

As a result, chemists began to search for new materials, hoping to find a material that can be absorbed by the human body but will not decompose quickly. People finally found a material called polyglycolide (PGA). This is a synthetic fiber. Polyglycolide polymer will slowly decompose into small molecules under the unique acid and alkaline conditions of the human body, but its decomposition speed is much slower than that under enzyme conditions, and it can maintain its strength for a period of time. In other words, after the organs are fully healed, they slowly decompose and are finally absorbed by the body. In this way, the patient's pain is avoided.

So, is this kind of synthetic material harmful to the human body? This is nothing to worry about. Because the decomposition of this synthetic material does not consume human enzymes, and the small molecules produced by decomposition do not participate in the body's metabolic activities, and will eventually be excreted by the human body. For the patient, it only has a very slight tissue reaction. Therefore, it is more suitable for suture than catgut.

Due to the different healing speeds and required conditions of various organ wounds, it is necessary to produce sutures made of various synthetic materials. For example, the healing of wounds on the eyeballs is slower than the healing of the intestines, and the body fluids around the two eyeballs are acidic. For this reason, the performance of the sutures used to sew the intestines and the eyeballs should be different. At this point, chemists live up to expectations and can change the combination of their components according to their needs, so as to design materials suitable for various needs to meet the needs of different organs.

Practice with Medarchitect suture kit, we also provides cost-effective non-absorbable sutures such as nylon, silk, polyester, polypropylene for medical students.