[gforge]

MD here: perhaps as an alternative to outpatient wounds but we've been using glue for 10+ years now. It works when you have a clean wound but often you need to reconstruct messy wounds and then glue doesn't get the job done. You need to be able to pull the skin and with glue you will just end up gluing your glove onto the wound (yup, personal experience).

In the operating theater I don't really see it happening. We've been discussing using glue there but then you need an additional layer of sutures which usually take longer to do (intracutaneous). Anything that takes time in the threatre is usually a deal breaker.

There are probably use cases outside my field but even for burns I'm uncertain if it is a good fit. Most wounds are not sterile and encapsulating bacteria under a layer of fiber seems like a recipe for pushing the bacteria deeper and generating a more severe infection.

[elif]

10+ years? Hm.. super glue has been used by hikers to treat wounds for as long as I can remember (20+?)

I wonder if this is a case of necessity inventing it and medical practice following

[gforge]

Yeah, I remember some spray version when I was a kid. The 10+ is how long I think it has been present at my particular hospital.

The interesting thing is that it hasn't really caught on. We don't have any financial pressure or other external factors, it is really convenient, yet I'm pretty sure that only 10-20% of the doctors use it.

[euroclydon]

I didn't see anything in the article about whether the surface is breathable. Assuming it is not, then how wells does skin regrow under a sealed layer?

[gforge]

Probably fine. We often have blisters where there is an intact surface protecting the new skin. The big difference is that an intact blister is sterile by nature while most other wounds will always have some contamination.

[lixtra]

Are there gloves that are that don’t stick to glue? Seems perfectly possibly to me.

[gforge]

Probably, but it is probably not that cost motivated. Also, you quickly learn how to avoid that particular problem.