At Curical, we combat bacteria by adding copper to our medical devices. Copper is a natural antimicrobial agent and an essential element in the human body which facilitates normal metabolic processes¹. Also, copper has been long used with no known evidence of the emergence of resistant microbial strains².

Our first product is an absorbable multifilament suture. Why suture?

Because suture is a risk factor to Surgical Site Infection (SSI). SSI is defined as an infection that occurs within 30 days after the operation and involves the skin of the incision³. Foreign materials, such as sutures, are a risk factor to SSI as they lower the number of bacteria required to cause an infection⁴. Therefore adding copper to the suture reduces the microbial colonization of the suture.

The World Health Organization gave recently a conditional recommendation to use triclosan-coated sutures (only commercial antibacterial sutures) for the purpose of reducing the risk of SSI. It was also written that “..comparisons with an alternative antimicrobial agent to triclosan would be welcome”⁵.

We think copper is an optimal antibacterial agent for sutures and are working towards getting the FDA’s clearance to our first suture in 2018.

1. UAUY. R, et al; Essentiality of copper in humans. Am. J Clin. Nutr., 1998, vol.1.  67, no. 5 Suppl, p. 952S-959S.
2. BORKOW, G. Safety of Using Copper Oxide inn Medical Devices and Consumer Products. Current Chemical Biology. 2012 6(1):86-92
3,5. Global guidelines for the prevention of surgical site infection, World Health Organization, 2016.
4. Edmiston CE, et al. Bacterial adherence to surgical sutures: can antibacterial-coated sutures reduce the risk of microbial contamination? J Am Coll Surg; 2006, 203(4):481-489

In addition, we have tested the safety of our sutures in an initial in-vivo study,
seeing no difference in absorption or tissue reaction between test and control sutures at either 7 or 14 days.