Treatments: Not Keeping Them in Stitches

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http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/13/health/13TREA.html

Treatments: Not Keeping Them in Stitches

By ERIC NAGOURNEY

Emergency room doctors may be too quick with the needle and thread, a new study suggests. In many cases, it adds, just washing out a cut and bandaging it achieves the same results as sutures.

The study, in the current issue of The British Medical Journal, looked just at hand injuries. The authors said the findings could be applicable to any cut that is not in a cosmetically sensitive area like the face and does not involve a gaping wound or damage to tendons or nerves.

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The proposition could be a tough sell to doctors and their patients, said the study's lead author, Dr. James Quinn, an emergency medicine doctor at the University of California at San Francisco.

About one-third of the patients whose wounds made them good candidates for the study asked for stitches. Many responded, "Of course I need stitches."

But most probably did not, according to the study, which ran nine months in an emergency room in San Francisco.

Ninety-one patients agreed to take part in the study. Half received stitches and bandages, the other half just bandages. When independent doctors evaluated photographs of the wounds three months later, they found no differences in how they had healed.

Moreover, the bandage treatment took less time and cost less, and the patients were able to resume normal activities in the same period of time, the study reported. Those who did not have stitches, the study added, experienced less pain.


 

 

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