Use of the spiral needle for a perfect cosmetic wound closure
Wounded tissue heals the fastest when related wound layers lie against one another without any tension. Therefore, larger wounds are usually sutured. Typically, the surgeon pierces the thread on both sides of the wound through the tissue and knots the thread. Long wounds inevitably contain multiple knots – these are often not cosmetically satisfying.
More cosmetically appealing is a suture that runs only intra- or subcutaneously. However, these sutures require great surgical skills and are possible only at very accessible wounds.
With the Doci Innovations spiral needle, wounds can be sutured easily and cosmetically appealing, even in less accessible areas. In this case, the spiral needle is used in combination with an alternating thermal treatment of the tissue used. Tendons and muscles, vessels and nerves are sutured more accurately and faster with the spiral needle than with conventional needles. Also, ruptures of the muscle fiber can be treated with the spiral needle - thereto the surgeon would have to suture the rupture across and along the course of muscle.
Surgical procedure for wound closure
The spiral needle for wound closure is designed as a hollow needle, which holds the surgical thread inside of it. The thread terminates in a tip, which facilitates the puncture, while suturing. If the tip and the thread are made of absorbable material, which is usually the case, they do not have to be surgically removed.
The surgeon inserts the spiral needle in a rotating motion into the tissue. If it is an absorbable tip, the tip tilts during the reverse twist of the needle from the tissue and spreads quickly like an umbrella, when pressure is applied on the handle of the needle. Like this a closure of the suture channel is generated; the absorbable suture remains in the tissue. If the needle tip is made of metal and is therefore not absorbable, the surgeon holds it with a surgical forceps, so that the absorbable thread can remain in the tissue. Subsequently, the wound edges can be joined together by the contraction of the regular sub- or intracutaneous punctures.
Thermal Exchange Treatment
To ensure that no gap between the cut – off canal and the remaining thread is created and to make sure that not blood from the inside of the vessels emerges at the cut – off canal, as well as to improve the cohesion of the tissue, the suture area is at first frozen. This causes an expansion of the tissue due to the larger mass of tissue fluid. The tissue is then reheated immediately to 50 ° to 60 ° C. Due to the contraction of the capillary and of the connective tissue in the cutting area , as well as the immediate reheating, the tissue is tightened - the suture has a better grip. The thermal exchange treatment can be repeated if necessary.