Knotless Closure of the Cardiac Venous Cannulation Site Using Barbed Suture: A First Step in Including Barbed Sutures in our Cardiac Surgery Practice

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Author Info

Filip W. N. Haenen T Sloane Guy Inez Rodrigus

Corresponding Author

Filip W. N. Haenen
Department of Cardiac and Thoracic Surgery, Sint Antonius Hospital, Nieuwegein, The Netherlands

A B S T R A C T

Background: Barbed sutures have rarely been used in cardiac surgery. The reason is the absence of safety and feasibility data. This study was set up to assess the safety and efficacy using barbed sutures for right atrium cannulation-site closure both in short and longer-term follow up. Methods: Ten patients undergoing routine CABG through sternotomy with the use of ECC were included after giving written informed consent. After performing CABG, closure of the venous cannulation site at the right atrium is performed, using Stratafix® 2/0 non-resorbable, spiral polypropylene (SXPL1B400), without knotting. Results: No postoperative bleeding complications or revisions for bleeding or tamponade were noted. No complications or major adverse cardio-cerebrovascular incidents were registered during follow-up. The relevance of this lies in the difficulty in tying timely knots, even in experienced hands, during scopic or minimally invasive procedures. Being able to avoid this cumbersome procedure would largely reduce time spent on tying knots (the single most efficient time reducing step in minimally invasive cardiac surgery). Conclusion: Using knotless barbed sutures with an additional self-locking manoeuvre is feasible for the closure of the right atrium cannulation site in cardiac surgery, with no short-term or long-term complications. This opens up possibilities using knotless barbed sutures safer in minimally invasive cardiac surgery. This study confirms barbed knotless sutures perform adequately when closing a low-pressure cardiac structure, and in such, potentially saving time in minimally invasive surgery. Further investigation in closure of other cardiovascular structures is advisable and are planned by the authors.

Article Info

Article Type

Research Article

Publication history

Received: Wed 13, Oct 2021
Accepted: Fri 29, Oct 2021
Published: Wed 03, Nov 2021

Copyright

© 2023 Filip W. N. Haenen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Hosting by Science Repository.
DOI: 10.31487/j.SCR.2021.11.10