UW-Madison researchers are working on a method for enhancing the healing process after surgeries.

The method coats stitches with a special material.

Bill Murphy, a professor of biomedical engineering at UW-Madison, started working on this idea nearly a decade ago. The idea of using stitches as a vehicle to deliver drugs at sites of tissue damage can be applied in many medical settings, he says, but shows the most promise for musculoskeletal damage.

When surgeons use regular stitches — otherwise known as sutures — to close up a wound or surgical cut, the body reacts by quickly forming scars.

“That can be OK in some cases, but it doesn’t recreate the function or structure of natural tissue,” Murphy told WisBusiness.com. “Patients can lose some function in that area because of scarring.”

See more at WisBusiness.com 

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