Abdominal skin incision closure with non-absorbable sutures versus staples- a comparative study

Abstract

Background: Bacterial smartness and innovations have clearly outsmarted and drained the antibiotic discovery pipelines of pharmaceutical brains throughout the globe. Postoperative infection is a major cause of antibiotic use. The aim of the study was to compare the effects of using non-absorbable suture materials and staples for abdominal skin incision closure in terms of the occurrence rate of surgical site infections, the level of comfort experienced by patient and the cosmetic acceptability of scar by the patient.Methods: A randomized control study conducted at the general surgical department of a tertiary hospital in Southern India. The final scores of the study in the categories of surgical site infection, pain and cosmesis were analyzed using Students t-test or Anova test.Results: The use of staples to close skin incision in laparotomy cases reduces surgical site infection, improves the perception of cosmetic appearance of scar to the patient and adds to the comfort of patient by reducing the pain experienced by the patient. The subgroup of population who may comprehensively benefit are patients below 40 years, middle and high socio economic status population, clean and clean contaminated surgeries where incision length is more than 5cm.Conclusions: The results of this study illustrated the fact that the use of staples in closure of skin incision in laparotomy case especially in selected subgroup of population significantly reduces the surgical site infection, hence slashing the use of antibiotics and in turn has the potential to reduce the incidence of antibiotic resistance.