Scientists in China has developed a bioabsorbable suture that accelerates wound healing with the patient’s natural movements generating electrical stimulation.
This breakthrough, reported in Nature Communications, could significantly advance surgical healing techniques – reducing recovery times and minimising infection risks for postoperative wounds.
The study, by Dr Chengyi Hou and colleagues at Donghua University in Shanghai, introduces the novel suture design that is fully biodegradable.
When movement causes the suture to stretch, it generates an electric field that enhances cellular repair processes directly at the wound site.
Dr Hou said: ‘This electrical stimulation suture is a fully biodegradable and self-electrified material. It helps wound healing without additional approaches, [such as] using external electric devices.’
Electrical stimulation has been shown to promote healing by enhancing cellular migration and proliferation, both essential in tissue repair.
Typically, this is achieved using external devices, but the team’s innovation harnesses the body’s kinetic energy to activate healing at the cellular level.
The design relies on the triboelectric effect, generating an electric field by creating opposite charges in the core and sheath materials as they move in response to muscle activity.
The suture is engineered with a magnesium filament core, enveloped in a biodegradable polymer, and further protected by a sheath of another bioabsorbable material.
Initial in vitro experiments reveal these sutures significantly increased cell migration and proliferation when an electrical field was present compared to traditional sutures.
Electrical stimulation also inhibits bacterial growth, thereby reducing infection risk.
Dr Hou’s team tested the sutures on rats with muscle incisions, showing that wounds stitched with the new sutures healed 50% faster than those with standard absorbable sutures.
Within 10 days, wounds treated with the new sutures were nearly healed, with markedly lower bacterial counts than those treated with traditional stitches.
The research team is advancing toward human clinical trials with a view that biocompatible sutures could offer a viable, cost-effective option to surgeons.
The sutures degrade naturally and eliminate the need for removal surgery.
Should human trials confirm the efficacy observed in preclinical testing, these electrically stimulating sutures, termed BioES-sutures, could transform surgical aftercare, facilitating faster recovery across various procedures and tissue types.
