Stitch stops clot.

Stitch stops clot

Sutures laced with a natural clot-dissolving compound can significantly reduce the number of postsurgical blood clots in animals, and may prove useful in humans, researchers report. Clot formation is a common post-surgical complication, especially in smaller vessels. The clots can block circulation to nearby tissues, or break fre and lodge elsewhere, blocking blood flow and oxygen supply to parts of the heart, lungs or brain.

Carlton A. Eddy, of the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in San Antonio, and his colleages incorporated the anticlotting drug prostacylin into a biodegradable polymer, polycaprolactone, and made the mixture into a monofilament suture. The researchers cut, then repaired, the left and right femoral veins in 13 rats, suturing one vein in each rat with the drug-containing filament and the other vein in each with an untreated polycaprolactone filament. Examination after 24 hours showed all drug-releasing sutures intact and revealed no clots. Eight of 13 untreated vessels contained dense blood clots that completely blocked the vessels.

The sutures may be tested in humans within the next two years, the researchers reported in San Antonio last week at the World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering.