Barbed Sutures versus Konventionelle Nahtmaterialien - welchen Effekt hat die Nutzung unterschiedlicher Nahtmaterialien auf die Rate an Wundinfektionen und Wundheilungsstörungen

The title of the study is "Is there an increased incidence of wound healing disorders when using barbed sutures for wound closure?". To test this assumption, a total of 453 patients were examined retrospectively over a period of three years. Additional risk factors have been considered and a distinction has also been made between the individual operations. Furthermore, the probability of complications regarding the use of the suture material for the subcutaneous or skin sutures was considered. In order to be able to evaluate the data better, two documentation sheets were developed and the data was recorded statistically. Although some abnormalities could be shown in comparison to conventional threads, statistically verifiable significance only existed in the case of additional, already known risk factors such as a higher BMI or existing secondary diseases such as diabetes mellitus. When considering the point in time and the type of complication that occurred, there were hardly any differences in the percentage comparison. When comparing the complications that occurred with regard to the type of complication, however, a clear difference between breast augmentation, abdominoplasty and breast reduction was shown. Most complications occurred with breast reductions, and here too the barbed sutures performed relatively poorly. Unfortunately, the group of patients examined was very inhomogeneous, so that a wide variety of disturbance variables were added. This study also showed no significance with regard to the occurrence of wound healing disorders and smoking, although this is already known and has been proven by many studies. It can be assumed that these multiple confounding factors could have significantly influenced the results of the study. Nevertheless, the study showed that the use of barbed sutures for subcutaneous sutures could be advantageous and lead to fewer wound healing disorders, but that more complications could occur when using barbed sutures for skin sutures compared to the use of conventional monofilaments sutures. At the end of the study, an attempt was made to achieve better comparability of the cases examined by means of matching. Unfortunately, the group sizes generated in this way were too small to achieve statistically significant results. As an outlook, the use of the threads in laparoscopic surgery and for use in aesthetically motivated treatments has been listed.