Cleaning absorbable sutures with hydrogen peroxide dramatically decreases their tensile strength, researchers from UT Southwestern Medical Center have found.
"Hydrogen peroxide has been used as an antiseptic and antibacterial agent for many years. I think people are enamored with it because it foams up when put it on a cut or scab" said Dr. Joseph Leach, associate professor of otolaryngology and senior author of the study. "While hydrogen peroxide is good for cleaning scabs, this study shows it's not the best choice for sterilizing wounds closed with absorbable sutures."
The study's results, appearing in the July/August issue of the Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery, showed alternatively that cleaning absorbable, or gut, sutures with distilled water did not decrease their strength.
Sutures - whose use is described in Egyptian scrolls dating from 3500 B.C. - are surgical threads used to repair cuts and to close incisions after medical procedures. There are two variations in medical use today: those that are absorbable and break down harmlessly in the body and those that are nonabsorbable and are removed manually. Absorbable sutures provide a temporary scaffold until the wound itself can support the normal stresses and strains on tissues. Nonabsorbable sutures provide permanent support scaffolding and are removed once healing has occurred.
In the current study, 15 samples of absorbable sutures and nonabsorbable sutures were examined. The five-sample control groups were not manipulated in any way, while the other two groups underwent a twice-a-day regimen of either being dipped in hydrogen peroxide or distilled water for five minutes each. This was done for five days to simulate a wound-care regimen. The hydrogen peroxide solution was the same as that commonly bought in drugstores.
At the end of the five days, all samples were subjected to strength testing using a machine that would pull the sample apart until the suture broke.