Absorbable Sutures

Although the use of surgical staples and clips has become more common in the last thirty years, the competent surgeon needs to have a thorough understanding of surgical sutures.
Perhaps the key characteristic of a suture is whether it is an absorbable or nonabsorbable material.
Absorbable sutures have a varying time period before they are absorbed by the body. The classic absorbable suture was a gut suture. A list of suture types is as follows:
Surgical gut (plain) – made from the serosa of beef intestine or submucosa of sheep intestine
Surgical gut (chromic) – made by soaking plain gut suture in the salts of chromic acid

Source: Inside Surgery - January 1, 2013 Category: Surgeons Authors: Editor Tags: Surgpedia Tip of the Day chromic maxon monocryl pds plain gut silk suture Source Type: blogs