Development of herbal drug loaded antimicrobial silk suture

Abstract

Drug loaded antimicrobial silk suture have been developed for use in both wound closure and wound healing with an intention to prevent surgical site infections. The material has been analyzed for various suture properties such as tensile strength, elongation, knot strength, bending properties and diameter. The suture material is coated with chitosan (biopolymer) and incorporated with herbal drug. Cold maceration technique is used to extract Cynodon dactylon drug for the study. SEM reveals the uniform deposition of chitosan on to the surface of the suture material. The polymer and drug coated samples are subjected to FTIR analysis. To optimize the process parameter, response surface method is adopted using Box-Behnken experimental design. The drug loaded samples are also subjected to antimicrobial study (AATCC 100) against S.aureus and E.coli and found to have effective bacterial reduction percentage. Thus, the natural drug loaded suture material would be a better alternative for synthetic drug loaded suture which is found to have some demerits.