Octylcyanoacrylate tissue adhesive versus suture wound repair in a contaminated wound model.

BACKGROUND: Octylcyanoacrylate tissue adhesive is a topical wound closure that precludes the need for foreign bodies (sutures) to close wounds. It also has an in vitro antimicrobial effect when standard disc sensitivity tests are used.

METHODS: To determine whether contaminated wounds closed with octylcyanoacrylate tissue adhesive will have a lower infection rate compared with wounds closed with 5-0 monofilament sutures, we designed a randomized, blinded, experimental animal study. Two incisions were made on 20 albino guinea pigs. The wounds were contaminated with 10(5) Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 12600 and randomly assigned to be closed with either topical octylcyanoacrylate tissue adhesive or percutaneous 5-0 polypropylene suture. Five days later the adhesive and sutures were removed, and a section of the wound was given to a histopathologist blinded to the type of wound closure. The wound was determined to be infected if inflammatory cells with intracellular cocci were seen. The rest of the wound was opened and examined for clinical evidence of infection. Quantitative bacteriologic analysis was performed.

RESULTS: Five wounds in the tissue adhesive group were sterile on day 5, whereas all sutured wounds had positive cultures (25% versus 0%, p < 0.05). Fewer wounds in the tissue adhesive group were determined to be infected by histologic and clinical criteria (0% versus 55%, p < 0.001, and 20% versus 65%, p < 0.01, respectively). Agreement on the determination of infection by histologic and clinical criteria yielded a kappa coefficient of 0.46 (95% confidence interval [GI], 0.19 to 0.73). An infection criterion of 10(5) colony-forming units/gm of tissue correlated poorly with clinical and histologic infection rates (0.19 [95% CI, -0.06 to 0.44] and 0.13 [95% CI, -0.05 to 0.31], respectively).

CONCLUSIONS: Contaminated wounds closed with sutures had higher infection rates compared with those reported with topical tissue adhesive. The amount of colonization may not be an accurate method to determine infection.