With the advancement in technology, there is glue that could help in sealing the wounds.. Biomedical engineers from the US and the University of Sydney collaborated to develop surgical glue that is called as metro. MeTro’s high elasticity makes it ideal for sealing wounds in body tissues that continually expand and relax – such as lungs, hearts and arteries – that are otherwise at risk of re-opening.
The material also works on internal wounds that are often in hard-to-reach areas and have typically required staples or sutures due to surrounding body fluid hampering the effectiveness of other sealants.
MeTro sets in just 60 seconds once treated with UV light, and the technology has a built-in degrading enzyme which can be modified to determine how long the sealant lasts – from hours to months, in order to allow adequate time for the wound to heal.
The liquid or gel-like material has quickly and successfully sealed incisions in the arteries and lungs of rodents and the lungs of pigs, without the need for sutures and staples. Doctors then further stabilize it by curing it on-site with a short light-mediated cross-linking treatment.
This allows the sealant to be very accurately placed and to tightly bond and interlock with structures on the tissue surface. When you watch MeTro, you can see it act like a liquid, filling the gaps and conforming to the shape of the wound.
The potential application is very powerful that treats serious internal wounds at emergency sites such as following car accidents and in war zones, as well as improving hospital surgeries.
