The TachoSil-Pledget stitch: towards eradication of suture hole bleeding

We describe a novel suture consisting of a small piece of TachoSil (Nycomed, Copenhagen, Denmark) and a felt pledget-the TachoSil-pledget stitch-which was used to facilitate mechanical and biologic hemostasis in 5 patients undergoing aortic arch aneurysm repair. The TachoSil-pledget stitch achieved good or very good hemostasis at all 56 bleeding points to which it was applied, while 5 of 12 points to which a conventional felt-pledget stitch was applied required additional stitching or an additional hemostatic method.