Looks like everything is becoming “smart” these days, thanks to developments in technology.
Researchers have developed a new type of surgical glue that addresses all the drawbacks of previous adhesives and is a much simpler technology and a new paradigm for tissue reconstruction.
This was revealed by co-senior author and bio-medical researcher Jeffrey Karp in a news release. The findings were reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
Researchers from Boston Children’s Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology participated in the study.
The glue is a major improvement over current suturing adhesives that often lose their stickiness in bloody situations. It has the added benefit of working quickly because its adhesiveness is activated by ultraviolet light, which enables surgeons to quickly activate the material when they need to seal a hole.
The reserchers say that it takes fewer than five seconds of UV light application to seal defects in high-pressure, large blood vessels and in cardiac walls.
If it performs well in clinical trials, the super-smart sticky stuff has the potential to cut down operating times, enable less-invasive surgery, and improve short- and long-term outcomes.
Source: C-Net
