To head off possible postoperative problems, undergraduate biomedical engineering students at Johns Hopkins University have invented a disposable suturing tool. Their invention, called FastStitch, guides the placement of stitches and guards against accidental puncturing of internal organs after abdominal surgery.
They describe their device as a cross between a pliers and a hole-puncher. While it is still in the prototype stage, the student team has already raised more than $80,000 this year in grant and prize money to move their project forward. Among their wins were first-place finishes in University of California, Irvine, and University of Maryland business plan competitions and in the ASME International Innovation Showcase.
If incisions are not closed properly, a patient can develop complications such as infection, herniation and evisceration. Addressing this problem became a course assignment over the past school year. The students were asked to design and test a tool that that would improve the way surgeons stitch together the strongest part of the abdomen, the muscle layer called the fascia, located just below the patient’s skin.
The FastStitch needle remains housed within the jaws of the stitching tool and the spring-loaded clamp punches the needle through the fascial layer then moves the needle from one arm of the tool to the other.
There's also a visual guide to ensure that the stitches are placed evenly, located the proper distance away from the incision and apart from one another. The prototype was constructed mostly of ABS plastic, so that the instrument can be inexpensive and discarded after one use.
