European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Abstract

A suture is a device, either natural or synthetic, which is used for ligation of blood vessels and in wound closure following surgery. Its major functions are to hold tissues together following wound closure or surgery. Neck dissection procedures leave open wounds which need to be approximated for the process of wound healing and aesthetic considerations. Henceforth the aim of the current study is to assess the type of sutures used in surgical wound closure of neck in patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma following radial neck dissection in private institutional setup in chennai. Data was procured from the case sheets of patients undergoing radial neck dissection following surgical management of oral squamous cell carcinoma. The data was tabulated in MS-Excel and analysed by SPSS software (Version 20). The results were inferred. 60% of the external surgical wound closure were sutured using silk sutures while 40% where sutured using polyglactin and nylon sutures. 60% of the internal wound closures were closed using polyglactin while 40% was using polypropylene and nylon.Polyglactin 910 and silk were the most predominantly used suture materials for internal and external surgical wound closure in an private institutional set up in Chennai.