DERMALON™ monofilament nylon sutures are inert, nonabsorbable, sterile surgical sutures composed of the long-chain aliphatic polymers Nylon 6 and Nylon 6.6.
Features:
- Uniform diameter of the suture
- Maximum flexibility of the strand
- Excellent security with snug and flattened knots
- Minimal memory
- Excellent and consistent knotting strength
Specifications:
- Size: USP 2/0
- Needle Type: 3/8 circle reverse cutting
- Needle Length: 39 mm
- Thread Length: 75 cm
- Colour: Blue
- Quantity: 36 units
General Information
A surgical suture (commonly called stitches) is a medical device used to hold body tissues together after an injury or surgery. The application generally involves using a needle with an attached length of thread. A number of different shapes, sizes, and thread materials have been developed over its millennia of history.
Through many millennia, various suture materials were used, debated, and remained largely unchanged. Needles were made of bone or metals such as silver, copper, and aluminum bronze wire. Sutures were made of plant materials (flax, hemp, and cotton) or animal material (hair, tendons, arteries, muscle strips and nerves, silk, catgut).
The earliest reports of surgical suture date back to 3000 BC in ancient Egypt, and the oldest known suture is in a mummy from 1100 BC. A detailed description of a wound suture and the suture materials used in it is by the Indian sage and physician Sushruta, written in 500 BC.[citation needed] The Greek "father of medicine" Hippocrates described suture techniques, as did the later Roman Aulus Cornelius Celsus. The 2nd-century Roman physician Galen described gut sutures. In the 10th century, the manufacturing process involved harvesting sheep intestines, the so-called catgut suture, and was similar to that of strings for violins, guitar, and tennis racquets.
Joseph Lister introduced a great change in suturing technique (as in all surgery) when he endorsed the routine sterilization of all suture threads. He first attempted sterilization with the 1860s "carbolic catgut," and chromic catgut followed two decades later. Sterile catgut was finally achieved in 1906 with iodine treatment.
The next great leap came in the twentieth century. The chemical industry drove the production of the first synthetic thread in the early 1930s, which exploded into the production of numerous absorbable and non-absorbable synthetics. The first synthetic absorbable was based on polyvinyl alcohol in 1931. Polyesters were developed in the 1950s, and later the process of radiation sterilization was established for catgut and polyester. Polyglycolic acid was discovered in the 1960s and implemented in the 1970s. Today, most sutures are made of synthetic polymer fibers. Silk and, rarely, gut sutures are the only materials still in use from ancient times. In fact, gut sutures have been banned in Europe and Japan owing to concerns regarding Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy. Silk suture is still used, mainly to secure surgical drains.
Needles
Eyed or reusable needles are needles with holes or eyes which are supplied separately from their suture thread. The suture must be threaded on-site, as is done when sewing at home. The advantage of this is that any thread and needle combination is possible to suit the job at hand. Swaged, or atraumatic, needles with sutures comprise a pre-packed eyeless needle attached to a specific length of suture thread. The suture manufacturer swages the suture thread to the eyeless atraumatic needle
at the factory. The chief advantage of this is that the doctor or the nurse does not have to spend time threading the suture on the needle, which may be difficult for very fine needles and sutures. Also. the suture end of a swaged needle is narrower than the needle body, eliminating drag from the thread attachment site. In eyed needles, the thread protrudes from the needle body on both sides, and at best causes drag. When passing through friable tissues, the eye needle and suture combination may thus traumatise tissues more than a swaged needle, hence the designation of the latter as "atraumatic".
There are several shapes of surgical needles. These include:
- Straight
- 1/4 circle
- 3/8 circle
- 1/2 circle. Subtypes of this needle shape include, from larger to smaller size, CT, CT-1, CT-2 and CT-3.
- 5/8 circle
- Compound curve
- Half curved (also known as ski)
- Half curved at both ends of a straight segment (also known as a canoe)
- Spiral needles
The ski and canoe needle design allows curved needles to be straight enough to be used in laparoscopic surgery, where instruments are inserted into the abdominal cavity through narrow cannulas.
Needles may also be classified by their point geometry; examples include:
- Taper (needle body is round and tapers smoothly to a point)
- A cutting (needle body is triangular and has a sharpened cutting edge on the inside curve)
- Reverse cutting (cutting edge on the outside)
- Trocar point or tapercut (needle body is round and tapered, but ends in a small triangular cutting point)
- Blunt points for sewing friable tissues
- Side cutting or spatula points (flat on top and bottom with a cutting edge along the front to one side) for eye surgery
Finally, atraumatic needles may be permanently swaged to the suture or may be designed to come off the suture with a sharp straight tug. These "pop-offs" are commonly used for interrupted sutures, where each suture is only passed once and then tied.
Eyed surgical needles form 3/8th of a circle, in different sizes.
Eyed surgical needles which are semicircular, in different sizes.
Sutures can withstand different amounts of force based on their size; this is quantified by the U.S.P. Needle Pull Specifications.