After having a surgical operation, a leading concern surgeons have is post-operative infections, which negatively impact the patient's health. Post-operative infections may require more extended hospital stays for the patients, poor wound healing, more surgical operations to clean out the infection in the wound, administering additional antibiotics, and increased costs to the hospital and patients. The surgical team does everything possible to prevent a post-surgical infection. However, there are cases where every sterile technique was followed correctly, and the patient still gets a post-surgical infection. Every day, there are new medical practices, procedures, and technologies that improve patient care, and an example of this is Smart Sutures.
Smart Sutures are typically used for incision sites deep within the body (such as a colon resection surgical procedure) to recognize a bowel leak and infection. They help the surgeon diagnose an infection and administer treatment faster instead of relying on visible signs of infections such as abnormal respiratory (breathing) patterns, body temperature, and skin color. By the time visible signs are showing on a post-operative patient, the infection has started to spread, and without immediate treatment, the patient can develop sepsis, which can be deadly.
There have been varying developments of Smart Sutures, such as using a monitoring system to send out signals when a potential infection is developing within the body and coating the suture with a layer of hydrogel to release drugs to treat inflammation.
NUS (National University of Singapore) Institute for Health Innovation and Technology created a Smart Suture monitoring system to:
Function as a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag to send signals to an outside monitor
Signal change in frequency can cause surgical complications.
Signals can be read up to a depth of 50mm.
Early detection of gastric leakage and infection
Detection of broken or unraveled sutures causing wound dehiscence
MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) created additional functions of Smart Suture by coating sutures with a layer of hydrogel which can carry:
Microparticles sensing inflammation
Microparticles coated with peptides are released when MMPs (inflammation-associated enzymes) are present in the tissue.
Various drug molecules
Use of hydrogel to carry drugs that treat inflammatory bowel disease
Living cells
Delivering therapeutic stem cells
Smart Sutures are only used on patients who have undergone bowel-related surgical procedures. Developing ways of using Smart Suture for other areas within the body is possible, resulting in a future with fewer post-operative infections than seen today. NUS Institute for Health Innovation and Technology hopes to expand the operating depth of the sutures, which will help identify deeper tissues and organs. MIT is further testing the applications of hydrogels to carry microparticles, drug molecules, and living cells. MIT also hopes to find more ways to use Smart Suture in other areas of the body other than the gastrointestinal tract.
Sources