Effectiveness of knotless barbed sutures as an intraoral wound closure agent in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

Abstract

Surgical knots that are placed during conventional suturing are needed to anchor the suture to allow it to maintain tissue approximation at the wound margin. They reduce the effective volume and tensile strength of all sutures by thinning and stretching the material as well as creating an uneven distribution of tension across the wound with the higher tension burden placed at the knots. The objective of this systematic review is to evaluate the effectiveness of knotless barbed sutures on intraoral wound healing and operative time in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery procedures. The Data Bases of PubMed, Cochrane, and Google Scholar were searched for the related topics along with a complimentary manual search of all oral surgery journals till December 2020. Articles were selected based on the inclusion criteria, which included all RCTs. The knotless suture device consists of tiny barbs along its entire length surface, which arise from opposite directions on either side of a central non-barbed segment allowing the suture to be self-anchoring, allowing the close approximation of tissue while resisting the migration that can occur with swelling.