New electrical stitches use muscle movement to speed up healing

Stitches are getting a shocking upgrade.

In an experiment in rats, a new strong, flexible thread hastened wound healing by transforming muscle movement into electricity, researchers report October 8 in Nature Communications.

If the material is eventually deemed safe for use in people, it “could change how we treat injuries,” says materials scientist Chengyi Hou of Donghua University in Shanghai.

Researchers already knew that pumping electricity through stitches could speed healing, but previous technologies relied on bulky external batteries. The new sutures are powered by the body itself (SN: 3/2/23).

The thread is made from biodegradable polymers and magnesium, a metal that can be absorbed by the body over time. When muscles around the sutures contract and relax, the thread’s middle layer rubs against the outer shell, transferring electrons to the shell and generating electricity.

Hou and colleagues applied the thread’s electrical stimulation to artificial wounds in lab dishes. After 24 hours, fibroblasts — cells that are crucial to healing — decreased the wound area from 69 percent to 11 percent. Comparatively, untreated artificial wounds decreased in size from 69 percent to 33 percent after 24 hours.

In an experiment in rats, rodents treated with the electrical sutures made a quicker recovery and were less likely to develop an infection than rats treated with traditional sutures and untreated rats.

Hou’s team next plans to test the sutures in larger animals.