Thursday, November 3, 2016

Is it safe to put super glue on a small open wound as a makeshift stitch?

As David Urquhart has said, cyanoacrylates are commonly used to close wounds.

The brands used in the ED in which I work are Dermabond or Histoacryl.

However, your question states:- 'to use as a temporary stitch', it is pretty difficult to remove from wound edges after use and would make Suturing of the wound more awkward.

The other downside of the commercially available superglue type products is that some of them contain a dye which could lead to 'tattooing' of the wound.

Tissue adhesive is unsuitable to use for 'accidentally inflicted' deep wounds (surgical incisions are slightly different), is not ideal over joints, shouldn't be used near the eye and not for wounds which are heavily contaminated or where there is the possibility of tendon or nerve damage or foreign body.

Any bite wounds shouldn't be closed initially due to the infection risk.

I remember vividly, 'gluing' the head of a cantankerous old woman in ED with the assistance of a colleague known, colloquially as 'Mark Duck.'

She spent 10 minutes moaning, complaining and telling us we were slow and useless. Her constant barracking led to a moments inattention. As we tried to step away to admire our artistry, we realised that my latex glove was firmly attached to her head (much like the comb on the head of a cockerel- but the other way round) I extracted my hand from the glove and we retreated very rapidly to the store cupboard, giggling.

The moral of the story:- yes, you can use superglue but use it with caution.


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