Study of comparison between skin sutures and skin staplers: 400 case studies

Background: There are various ways the skin approximation whether be it sutures, staplers, glues, sterile tapes all of these have the same purpose of but the one which provides the best scar with least wound infection and consumes least time is the one that should be used. So here we have studied 400 patients over a period of 20 months comparing skin sutures with staplers and their outcome with respect to time consumed and percentage of complication. Methods: A prospective type of study was conducted from January 2013 to August 2014 at Dr. D Y Patil Hospital, Nerul for comparison between skin sutures and skin staplers in terms of effectiveness and complications in 400 patients who underwent various surgical procedures. The patients included in this study were randomly selected from those who underwent various surgical procedures which were either elective or emergency with various incisions. Results: The average time taken for skin closure by staplers is 1.84 min per 10 cm of wound & for skin sutures, it is 6.61 min per 10 cm of wound and complication rate for suturing is 30% & for staplers it is about 12%. Conclusion: Outcome of staplers is cosmetically superior to skin sutures with overall less complication as compared to skin sutures.