Medical suture

Catgut, which was used for medical suturing and as tough strings on tennis rackets and musical instruments, is not from cats, but comes from the intestines of sheep, horses, and other large mammals. 

Leung, J. C., Ruff, G. L. and Megaro, M. A. (2002). Barbed, bi-directional medical sutures Biomechanical properties and wound closure efficacy study. Society for Biomaterials 28th Annual Meeting Trarrsactions, 724. 

The first synthetic biodegradable aliphatic polyester commercially available was poly(e-caprolactone) (PCL), produced under the trade name Tone by the Union Carbide Corporation in the USA. The product was the subject of a number of biodegradability studies [7] and was originally employed for medical sutures, and then as a component in biodegradable polyester/starch blends (e.g., Mater-Bi Z-grade, Novamont, Novara, Italy) [13]. 

The expected fibre forming properties of poly(ester amide)s makes them suitable as bioresorbable medical sutures. Thus poly(ester amide)s based on a diamine and natural metabolites like glycolic- or lactic acid (Fig. 5.3) have been investigated. The properties of die material could be optimized by the use of water soluble diamide-diols to minimize polymer resorption time. To optimize the polymer melting temperature and in-vivo fibre strength retention succinic acid was used as die comonomer (Barrows, 1980). Alternating poly(ester... 

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