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University of Science and Technology of China developed a new spiral structure bionic surgical suture

Time:2021-01-18 Hits:

Surgical suture is the most indispensable thread material in surgery, and it is also the most typical application of biomedical textiles. The thread material is mostly composed of fiber monofilament, multifilament braided or multifilament twisted structure. At present, most high-end medical materials on the market rely on imports, which are very expensive. Therefore, it is urgent to develop domestic high-end medical materials with independent intellectual property rights.




Recently, a team led by Shuhong Yu from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) studied the microstructure and mechanical properties of lotus root fiber, and developed a bacterial cellulose hydrogel fiber that could be used for surgical sutures.
Bacterial cellulose (BC) hydrogels were processed into hydrogel fibers (BHF) with a lotus film-like microhelical structure. Unlike hydrogels formed by polymer chains, BHF with helical structure has a toughness of about 116.3 MJ/m3, which is more than 9 times that of untreated BC hydrogel fibers. Meanwhile, the three-dimensional nanofiber network of bacterial cellulose hydrogels enables BHF to have a high strength of over 90 MPa.



Its unique cellulose nanofiber network and bionic helical structure of the material to bring a unique "can stretch, don't rebound" mechanical properties, which can effectively buffer and absorbing energy, and with the synchronization of the human body deformation, so as to avoid secondary injury cut wounds, for its application in the field of high-end surgical suture laid a good foundation.




BHF has excellent mechanical properties and biocompatibility, especially suitable for surgical sutures. Compared with commercial surgical sutures with high modulus and hardness, BHF has a modulus similar to soft tissue, can absorb the energy from the deformation of tissue around the wound, and can produce certain deformation with the deformation of the wound tissue, and effectively protect the wound from being cut twice by the suture. In addition, the porous structure of nanofiber hydrogels also enables BHF to adsorb antibiotics or anti-inflammatory drugs and continue to release at the wound site, thus playing an anti-inflammatory role and accelerating wound healing.

The findings are published in the journal Nano Letters under the title "Bio-inspired loto-fiber-like Hydrogel Bacterial Cellulose Fibers".


(Source: Textile News official micro blog)