Nowadays, sutures are the standard treatment for large and deep wounds in the skin as they physically bring cells on either side of a wound back in contact to patch up the damage. Using sutures helps injuries not only to heal faster but also to avoid leaving larger scars and a higher risk of infection.
However, they also have their own complications. When the affected area is moved, that could open them up. In addition, sutures usually need to be removed by doctors after they’ve served their use.
In a new study, scientists at Donghua University in China have turned that weakness into a strength to solve those problems by developing stitches that generate an electric charge when stretched and heal wounds faster.
The new stitches are made with a specialized mechanoelectrical fiber, taking advantage of electric fields that are generated when the core and sheath layers of the fiber touch and separate as a result of movement. In another study, this also has been shown to speed up healing.
When the team of researchers tested cell structures in their lab with a wound that took up 69% of the surface area, the result showed it reduced to 32.6% with regular sutures and just 10.8% with electrical sutures after 24 hours. The electric signals must seem to speed up the migration of fibroblasts, which are cells that help build new connective tissue by secreting collagen.
When conducting tests on rats, the team found that the electrical sutures had closed the rats’ wounds by 96.5% while the control sutures were by 60.4% after 10 days.
When moving to test the infection rates of the electrical and traditional sutures, the team saw that the rats treated with electrical sutures showed significantly lower levels of bacteria than those with regular stitches whether the wound was disinfected daily or not.
Compared to other methods like the use of electricity to promote wound healing have involve systems of biosensors, the new one has the advantage of doing it all passively. The wound can be healed as the patient moves around.
Not only that, the electrical stitches are made of bioabsorbable materials allowing them to safely degrade in the body, so they would save patients the invasiveness of surgical removal.
Although there’s still plenty of work to do to get it ready for testing in humans, it’s a promising idea to help wounds heal faster and more safely.
Article & Image Source: Scimex