Suture threads created that speed up wound healing
Chinese biochemists have developed decomposable suture threads that produce a weak electric field when injected into the human or animal body. This field accelerates wound healing by about 59 percent and significantly reduces the risk of postoperative infections, according to an article published in the Nature Communications scientific journal, TASS reports.
“We have developed a biodegradable suture material, which consists of several layers of polycaprolactone, a copolymer of lactic and glycolic acids, and magnesium. This composite is peculiar for high mechanical strength, being also able to generate an electric field when moving and stretching. Its effect on regenerating tissues accelerates wound healing and reduces the chance of infections,” the researchers write.
The material was created by Chinese biochemists under the guidance of Associate Professor of Donghua University (in Shanghai) Hou Chengyi. When developing it, scientists took into account the fact that all human and animal body tissues produce a relatively weak but well-fixed electric field in the process of vital activity, which plays an important role in the processes of human body growth and wound healing.
In recent years, doctors and biologists have already accelerated wound healing and regeneration of damaged tissues and organs using electric fields, but in all these experiments, external sources of electricity were used. They are almost impossible or extremely difficult to use outside hospitals or labs, which prompted Chinese biochemists to create a material that generates an electric field when implanted into a patient’s body.
Hou Chengyi managed to select such sizes of interlayers of two polymer materials – polycaprolactone and a copolymer of lactic and glycolic acids – in which their interactions during compression and stretching generate an electric field whose voltage is approximately 2.8 volts. This field, as shown by experiments conducted by scientists on rats, persists for more than ten weeks after suturing.
According to the researchers, such wound stimulation accelerated the migration of stem cells to the damaged regions of the rodents’ muscles and skin by about 2-3 times, as a result of which a deep cut on one of their hind legs healed 59 percent faster than in the rats from the control group. In addition, scientists have not detected the development of postoperative infections in animals whose wounds were sewn with new surgical threads – an additional advantage from the use of this composite material.
