Week 6/ Results

Hi Everyone!

It has been an incredible week, even without stepping into the OR once while at Banner. Over the past few days, I spent several hours completing the experimental part of my project—the portion concerning tensile strength, at least. I conducted tests that compared how tensile strength varied with the following features of sutures:

1. Size. I used only what was available in the office, so to compare different sized sutures, I used 2-0, 3-0, and 5-0 Monocryl.
2. Monofilament vs. Multifilament (braided). To compare these I used 4-0 Ethilon (monofilament) and 4-0 Nurolon (braided), both nylon sutures.
3. Barbed vs. Regular. V-loc 180 (absorbable, barbed) and Coated Vicryl (regular, braided)

V-loc 180 Sutures!!!!!!!

To see a spreadsheet of my results, click here. In the beginning of next week I would also like to run some tests on the tensile strength of Stratafix sutures to compare to the results for the V-loc sutures. They are quite similar barbed sutures but provided by a different company, Ethicon. I will also begin to analyze the results gathered from the tensile strength tests. To do so, I will be finding a 95% confidence interval for each type of suture, and compare the different properties to see if there is a statistically significant difference (s/o to Mr. Peacher and our Stats class!)

Next week, I will be starting a new phase of my project. Using sutured tissue, I will be measuring the burst pressure of the tissue samples once they have been closed with either V-loc, Stratafix, or regular sutures. To summarize, burst pressure describes the maximum amount of pressure an inflated object (a pipe, usually) can withstand before the apparatus begins to leak/break/tear. To conduct this experiment, I will be using an arterial line to measure the pressure. It works, generally, like this:

The A-line will be borrowed from the ICU and the setup will be done by hospital tech, who have generously volunteered their time. Thank you so much! On another note, the tissue I will be using to test burst pressure is going to be pig uterus...Apparently this, along with the pig’s foot, can be obtained at your local asian market. Wish me luck :')

Hope that everyone has a great weekend! As colleges finally begin to release admissions decisions as well (!! D:), I hope that everyone receives good news!!!

Best,

Vanessa