Suturing or stitching is the most prevalent practice to facilitate the healing process and minimize complications caused by trauma or surgery. Traditionally, suture fibers were used to hold tissues together, which required the fiber to be removed from the healing site after recovery. Such removals occasionally damaged the wounds. Therefore, the stitches used nowadays are bioabsorbable.
Despite being biocompatible and causing no tissue reaction, such synthetic fibers don’t accelerate the healing process. Also, frequent movements open up the wounds.
In efforts to boost wound healing, researchers at Donghua University, China have reported intelligent biodegradable mechanoelectric stitches. These sutures generate electrical pulses from the movement to speed up wound healing by 50% and reduce the risk of infection.
Since electrical stimulations (ES) mimic the natural healing process of endogenous electric fields, they have proven effective during recovery. Electric stimulation provokes the passage of Na+/K+ between tissues, thereby directing neurite growth and cell proliferation.
However, ES requires a dedicated session from a healthcare professional. It can’t be used on injuries held by stitches. Therefore, these cutting-edge electric field-generating stitches (BioES-suture) could make advances in biomedicine.
BioES-suture consists of biodegradable polymers and resorbable metals easily absorbed by the body. The suture’s core layer is a bioabsorbable nanofiber-wrapped magnesium filament, while the sheath layer is a biodegradable thermoplastic material, PCL. The triboelectric mechanism generates electrical pulses during the contraction and relaxation process of muscle.
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The sutures are 350 microns in size and can generate 2.3 volts of electrical currents during normal activity.
“This electrical stimulation suture is a fully biodegradable and self-electrified material. It helps wound healing without any additional approaches, [such as] using external electric devices,” says Dr. Chengyi Hou, a co-author of the research.
During the lab experiments, the wounds covering 69.3% of the surface area were deduced to just 10.8 % after 24 hours of exposure to ES. Subsequently, researchers used BioES-sutures on rats. Reports show that the electrical stitches cured the wounds by 96.5% in 10 days, while the normal stitches closed by 60.4%.
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“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. This generates an electric field at the wound site to accelerate wound healing.” Hou said.
With several In vitro and in vivo experiments, the study has concluded that the electrical stitches are effective and safe, and ready to be used in clinical applications.
Journal Reference
- Sun, Z., Jin, Y., Luo, J., Li, L., Ding, Y., Luo, Y., Qi, Y., Li, Y., Zhang, Q., Li, K., Shi, H., Yin, S., Wang, H., Wang, H., & Hou, C. (2024). A bioabsorbable mechanoelectric fiber as electrical stimulation suture. Nature Communications, 15(1), 1-12. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-52354-x