Tissue Reinforcement of Incisional Closure Among High Risk Patients

Brief summary

Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.

Half of all individuals will undergo abdominal surgery in their lifetime. Following abdominal surgery, 30% of patients will suffer a major chronic complication with their wound closure in the first post-operative year. This may include significant wound infections, open wounds, fluid collections, fascial dehiscence, or incisional hernia. These complications not only have a substantial impact on the health care system (cost and chronic disease) and the hospital (cost and space), but most importantly have a substantial impact on the patient. Major chronic wound complications adversely impact patient quality of life and function. Potential methods to reduce major wound complications include utilizing specific suturing techniques or reinforcing the incision line. Suturing technique of small-bites (0.5x0.5 cm bites) as opposed to large bites (1.0x1.0 cm bites) has been shown to be efficacious in European populations with a typical body mass index of 20-25 kg/m2. Tissue reinforcement has been shown to decrease rates of major wound complications in small randomized controlled trials. However, the lack of widespread adoption of these practices may be due to issues of generalizability including strict inclusion criteria, careful patient selection, and small study size. For example, the generalizability of small bites to an overweight population (mean BMI in the United States is 28 kg/m2) as opposed to a normal-weight population are unclear. The use of synthetic materials in comorbid patients or complex settings may risk major wound complications such as prosthetic infection. Biologic materials have been shown to be effective in decreasing major wound complications but in different settings. This study is being done to assess the effectiveness of different efficacious strategies to decrease the rate of major wound complications following abdominal surgery among high-risk individuals The researchers hypothesize: 1. Among high-risk patients undergoing abdominal surgery, the use of "small-bites" closure as opposed to "large-bites" closure will increase the proportion of patients who are free of major, chronic wound complications at 1-year post-operative. 2. Among high-risk patients undergoing abdominal surgery, the biologic tissue reinforcement of the suture line as opposed to no reinforcement will increase the proportion of patients who are free of major, chronic wound complications at 1-year post-operative.

About this trial record page

What this page shows

Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT03148496, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.

What this page does not do

No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.

Where the data comes from

Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.

Last refresh

Last update posted Jul 21, 2022 · Synced Sep 8, 2026

Related: full search, browse by condition, browse by drug or therapy, browse by sponsor, browse by U.S. city.