Principles of abdominal wound closure. I. Animal studies
R. J. Sanders, D. DiClementi and K. Ireland
An experimental study in rats was designed to measure the effect of tissue
bite size and tightness of tying on the wound's ability to resist
dehiscence from increased intra-abdominal pressure. Abdominal incisions in
rats were closed in one of four ways: large tissue bites, tied tightly or
loosely, or small tissue bites, tied tightly or loosely. The strongest
closure was with large tissue bites and loose ties. The weakest closure was
with small bites and tight ties. It appeared that tying sutures loosely was
a little more important than taking large bites, although the difference
was not significant. Each of these factors was a contributing element.
