[Experimental evaluation, in vitro and in vivo, of the risk of infection related to the use of the most common surgical sutures].

Many parameters contribute to surgical infections. Of these, surgical sutures with their chemical and physical characteristics like tissue and cell reaction degree and bacterial adhesion, play an important role. Cell vitality, bacterial adhesion, cell reaction degree were tested "in vitro" and tissue reaction with an "in vivo" model on: plain catgut, silk, polyglycolic acid, polyglactin 910, polyglyconate, polypropylene and nylon. Vitality cell test did not reveal any cytotoxicity; bacterial adhesion showed a lower adhesion degree to synthetic materials; cell reaction showed an increase in soluble receptor (sIL 2R) values in all materials except catgut. Tissue reaction was higher for resorbable sutures, and lower for nylon. These results suggest that special attention should be paid to the choice of suture materials.