Influence of suture tension to the tearing characteristics of the soft tissues: an in vitro experiment

Abstract Objectives: To evaluate the influence of flap tension on the tearing characteristics of mucosal tissue samples in relation to various suture and needle characteristics. Material and methods: Lining and masticatory mucosal tissue samples obtained from pig jaws were prepared for in vitro testing. Tension tearing diagrams of 60 experiments were traced for 3‐0, 5‐0 and 7‐0 sutures with applied forces up to 20 N. In the second part, the same experiments were repeated with 100 diagrams to test the influence of needle characteristics with 5‐0 and 6‐0 sutures using only gingival tissue samples. Results: 3‐0 sutures mainly lead to tissue breakage at an average of 13.4 N. In contrast, 7‐0 sutures only resulted in breakage of the thread at a mean applied force of 3.7 N. With 5‐0 sutures, both events occurred at random at a mean force of 14.6 N. Irrespective of the needle characteristics, the mean breaking force for gingival samples with 5‐0 and 6‐0 sutures was approximately 10 N. Conclusions: Tissue trauma may be reduced by choosing finer suture diameters, because thinner (6‐0, 7‐0) sutures lead to thread breakage rather than tissue breakage.