Antiseptic Sutures

The operation may be a complete success, the surgeon may do a superb piece of needlework with sterile sutures, yet somehow the wound may still become infected just where the stitches were placed. Lord Lister, father of antisepsis and asepsis, knew this almost a century ago, and tried soaking his sutures in phenol (carbolic acid) to make them active as germ killers. But the effect wore off too soon. Surprisingly, even modern-day stainless steel sutures are almost as likely to be the site of an infection a few days after an operation.

Last week surgeons at New York's Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn described an antiseptic suture that seems to be just what Lister was looking for. Dr. Harry H. LeVeen and colleagues reasoned that if old-fashioned silk suture thread offers hiding places for germs, it will also have room to absorb a fair amount of antibacterial chemical. After swelling the silk to make it still more absorbent, they soaked it in a preparation of benzethonium, a modern, potent germ killer. Then they tested the sutures in mice, and got 100% protection against infection for at least five days, even when the animals were challenged with a massive injection of pus-forming staphylococci.

The surgeons are now beginning to use the sutures in human patients.

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