CDC joins the World Health Organization in considering the impact of triclosan-coated sutures on reducing SSI risks. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has revised its guidelines for preventing surgical site infections. Among its recommendations to health professionals is to "consider the use of triclosan-coated sutures for the prevention of SSI," according to "Guideline for the Prevention of Surgical Site Infection, 2017," published in the May 3 edition of JAMA Surgery online.

Ethicon, which offers suture technology, issued a statement in response to the CDC's updated guidelines. "Ethicon, with a 60-year legacy of innovation in surgical sutures, fully supports the CDC's updated guideline, which demonstrates their commitment to improving the quality of patient care and will ultimately help save many lives," stated Liza Ovington, Franchise Medical Director for Ethicon, in a news release.

Ethicon launched its Coated Vicryl Plus Antibacterial Suture on Valentine's Day 2003, MD&DI reported that year. "Ethicon understood the need for products to reduce surgical site infections because its R&D team was plugged into the surgical space and received feedback from surgeons who experienced the problem first hand," reported MD&DI's Jamie Hartford.

Ethicon Plus Sutures "are the only globally available sutures coated with triclosan that inhibit bacteria commonly associated with SSIs (including S. aureus, S. epidermidis, MRSA, MRSE, E. coli, and K. pneumoniae) from colonizing the suture," the company shared in its May 10, 2017, news statement.

"Triclosan-coated sutures should be considered as part of an institution's comprehensive evidence-based approach to reducing the risk of SSIs," added Charles Edmiston, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Surgery & Former Hospital Epidemiologist at Froedtert Hospital - Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, in the statement. "Ethicon Plus Sutures play an important role in reducing hospital-acquired infections, and with health care costs increasingly rising, it's now more important than ever to address the risk factors associated with SSIs."

Ethicon pointed to support from other organizations, including that from the World Health Organization. 

To learn more about Ethicon Plus Sutures, visit www.ethicon.com.

(Ethicon reported in the statement that Charles Edmiston is a paid consultant of Ethicon.)

[IMAGES COURTESY ETHICON]

User-centered design will be one of the major themes at the upcoming Medical Design & Manufacturing (MD&M) East 2017 conference in June. Check out these sessions and more:

To Err is Human, But How Do You Prevent It? Speaker: Michael Wiklund, General Manager, Human Factors Engineering, UL LLC, Wiklund R&D

Panel: What Does Usability Mean Today for Medical Device Engineers? Moderator: Stephen Wilcox, Principal, Design Science; Panelists: Daniel Kosoy, MD, Partner, Athenian Venture Partners; Jim Lebret, MD, Physician, New York University School of Medicine; and David Brick, MD, FAAP, FACC, Clinical Associate Professor, New York University Medical Center

Daphne Allen is executive editor of Pharmaceutical & Medical Packaging News and a contributor to Qmed. Reach her at [email protected] and on Twitter at @daphneallen