Jan 16, 2021

When it comes to surgical sutures, non-medical staff always feel that they are far away from their own lives and can't use them in daily life, but we still have some curiosity about this kind of medical products.

First of all, what does a surgical suture look like?

The surgical suture currently used consists of needle and thread. The suture needle is 1 / 2 arc type, there are also 3 / 8 arc or 1 / 4, 4 / 5 and so on. Thread has absorbable and non absorbable, Absorbable sutures are slowly hydrolyzed in human tissues without removing sutures.  Non absorbable suture is not absorbed by human body, and is often used in tissues with long wound healing period.

The choice of surgical suture depends on the type. The thickness of suture used in different tissues is different, so we should try to choose the sterile single strand suture which is thin, tensile and has little reaction to tissues. Now let's know the type of surgical suture:

Scene reappearance:

Operating rooms in China

Instrument nurse: Ms Wang, help me take down the No. 4 suture;

Wang: Here you are, line 4-0;

Equipment nurse: I'm talking about line 4;

Wang: This is line 4.

Ms Wang and the instrument nurse should be in a state of collapse at the moment. The furthest distance in the world may be to say something to each other, but we don't know what it means. So, can you help them resolve this embarrassment very clearly and concisely?

Answer:

USP (American Pharmacopoeia) standard and EP (European Pharmacopoeia) standard are commonly used for surgical suture. For USP standard: N / 0, the larger the N value is, the thinner the suture is, but it should be noted that it does not indicate the specific diameter of the suture; for EP standard: the unit is 0.1 mm, the larger the number is, the thicker the suture diameter is.

In China, USP standard is widely used for surgical suture, but there are differences between USP standard and Chinese traditional suture specifications, which is the root cause of Wang's embarrassment.

See here, do you understand? For the No. 4 suture required by the equipment nurse, you only need to give her 2-0 suture. Similarly, for the No. 7 and No. 10 suture that are often used, the corresponding 0 and 1 suture will be OK. 

 At present, the use of surgical suture in China tends to international standards, generally in accordance with USP standards. Such small embarrassing events as the above are rare. 

 Further extension, according to USP standard, what is the thickness range of each specification line? To answer this question, we need to compare USP and EP sutures. Because EP standard is in mm, it can better correspond to the suture diameter in USP standard. The comparison of their two corresponding specifications is as follows:

As shown in the figure, do you know something about the specifications of surgical suture needles? According to EP standard, we can know the approximate range of suture diameter under USP standard, but it may not be so detailed in clinic, and it is not necessary to remember the specific diameter range of each suture specification. However, for the operation situation of your department and the commonly used surgical suture, you still need to be impressed with its diameter.