Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 31, 2026
Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) as a Suture Material in Tendon Surgery
Published on: October 6, 2022
Evaluation of FiberLoop sutures in locking and nonlocking tendon repair
Michael P Cash1, Joseph M Sherrill, Thanapong Waitayawinyu
1Department of Plastic Surgery, Vanderbilt Medical Center, 1161 21st Ave South, Nashville, TN 37232, USA. michael.cash@vanderbilt.edu
Unlabelled:
The FiberLoop suture has been developed as a double stranded, double-armed suture of FiberWire, but has not been previously studied. This is a comparison study of FiberLoop, FiberWire, and Ethibond.
Methods:
Six groups of bovine tendons were randomly sorted for testing. They were cut and repaired using FiberWire, FiberLoop, and Ethibond with modified Kessler and modified Krackow repair techniques. A 4-0 core suture was used and tested to failure.
Results:
Both FiberLoop and FiberWire were significantly stronger than Ethibond regardless of the repair technique used. There was no difference between the nonlocking and locking repair technique in any of the suture groups. However, the nonlocking technique failed by tissue pull through while the locking technique failed by suture breakage.
Conclusions:
The FiberLoop suture and the FiberWire suture were significantly stronger than the Ethibond suture. Additionally, this study shows that the 4-0 suture is of adequate strength to repair a tendon injury. The double-armed Fiberloop may translate into quicker tendon repairs without sacrificing strength.
