Safer Stitches

For more than 18 centuries, the world's surgeons have mainly used catgut to stitch up their patients. The chief reason is that the body's enzymes can absorb catgut (actually made from cattle and sheep intestines), and the sutures usually disappear within 90 days. Because the material consists of animal protein, though, it has one flaw: it causes inflammation around the very wound it is supposed to heal.

Now a completely absorbable, non-irritating suture material has been developed at Lederle Laboratories' Davis and Geck Division in Pearl River, N.Y. To create the catgut substitute, which is trade-named Dexon, chemists tested 225 synthetic compounds before they hit upon polyglycolic acid, a polymer or long-chain molecule that is chemically compatible with the human body. They spent four years taming the polymer and learning how to braid it into a multiple-strand yarn of suture size.

Dexon has been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration, and will be introduced to the U.S. medical market this week. U.S. and British surgeons have already tried it in more than 5,000 operations with excellent results. One physician used it 47 times without an adverse reaction; another reported similar success in 108 procedures. In all cases, the stitches were safely absorbed by the patient's body and disappeared within 60 days.

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