Medical Glue instead of stitches?

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Medical Glue Can Bond Skin On Contact

Doctors Believe This Can Be Replacement For Stitches

UPDATED: 4:22 p.m. EDT July 3, 2003

NEW YORK -- Deep wounds that require emergency attention, or even stitches, happen millions of times a year -- especially during the holiday weekends. No one likes stitches -- but what if there was a glue to close the wound, instead of stitches? Now, there's Dermabond, a medical-grade cousin of Crazy Glue. "Any cut, any incision that you have, if there is no tension on it, you can apply the Dermabond to any part of the body," said Dr. Mokhtar Asaadi of St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, N.J. "Wherever you have a skin that you close, on the face, on any part of the body, on the lower part of the body, breasts, abdomen."

In addition to improving emergency medicine, it may be helpful for cosmetic procedures such as eyelid surgery. Carol is an eyelid surgery patient, and she believes Dermabond can help shave the time she'll need off for her procedure. "I want to go to work in a couple of days instead of taking weeks off for possible, you know, swelling, I think from stitching. I'm hoping that this will be less," she said. Asaadi said that stitches do yield excellent results in the eyelids, but patients can sometimes feel them or they have to be taken out. Plus, stitches can cause whiteheads to form in the skin, so Dermabond is ideal. "There is no difference between the scars as far as the final results are concerned, except that you are just getting rid of the annoying part of the suture removal," Asaadi said. is also thrilled with how well Dermabond works. "The glue came off on its own after a few days," she said. "I didn't have any black and blues, and the swelling was absolutely minimal." The process doesn't work very well if there's a lot of tension on the skin edges. There, you need dissolvable stitches underneath the skin and the glue can be used on the surface. Doctors have even started carrying Dermabond in their first-aid kits so they can close a laceration in places where stitching is impossible.