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The analysis of forces needed for the suturing of elliptical skin wounds

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Abstract

There is a lack of information regarding the forces required for suturing human wounds. The knowledge of suturing forces serves as complementary information for setting up the limiting geometry when using tissue adhesives and it might also be used in robot-assisted surgery. The main purpose of this paper was to evaluate the forces required for suturing selected skin wounds. An elliptical wound was chosen for our study. In this study a numerical analysis and in vivo experiments were performed. Regarding the numerical models, the maximum forces occurred in the middle of the elliptical wound in all cases. In the case of highest pre-stress used in these analyses the maximal force varied from 0.5 N for the smallest wound (30 × 5 mm) to 1.5 N for the largest wound (30 × 15 mm). The maximum peak force for the wound with a size of 46 × 13 mm was 3.2 N. The minimum peak force for the wound with a size of 36 × 5 mm was 1.1 N.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Mechanics, Technical University of Liberec, Studentska 2, 461 17, Liberec, Czech Republic

    Lukas Capek

  2. FEMTO-ST, University of Franche-Comte, 24, Chemin de l’Epitaphe, 25000, Besançon, France

    Emmanuelle Jacquet

  3. Department of Maxillofacial Surgery, Regional Hospital Liberec, Husova 10, 460 01, Liberec, Czech Republic

    Ladislav Dzan

  4. Department of Dentistry, Faculty of Medicine in Hradec Kralove, Charles University in Prague, Simkova 870, 500 01, Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic

    Antonin Simunek

Authors
  1. Lukas Capek
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  2. Emmanuelle Jacquet
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  3. Ladislav Dzan
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  4. Antonin Simunek
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Correspondence to Lukas Capek.

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Capek, L., Jacquet, E., Dzan, L. et al. The analysis of forces needed for the suturing of elliptical skin wounds. Med Biol Eng Comput 50, 193–198 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-011-0857-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-011-0857-5

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