Thermally drawn porous sutures for controlled drug release

Abstract

A surgical suture is a medical device which has been used to close wounds for a long time. In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in smart sutures with functionalities such as wound monitoring, inflammatory response inhibition, and tissue regeneration promotion. Existing smart sutures add bioactive molecules or modify morphologies only to the surface, but these methods have limitations in implementing sophisticated morphologies as well as providing extensive functionalities. We presented thermal drawing process (TDP) as a suture manufacturing platform which can apply a desired structure to the inside of the suture with various materials. In this work, thermally drawn porous suture for controlled drug release is fabricated using thermally induced phase separation (TIPS). This approach can provide a personalized suture that realizes a suitable drug release profile by controlling the pore size according to the quenching temperature.