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General Medicine & Health Science Fair Project

Horizontal vs. Vertical Mattress Sutures

Hard
Horizontal vs. Vertical Mattress Sutures | Science Fair Projects | STEM Projects
Does the direction of a stitch change how much weight a wound can hold? Surgeons use two main mattress suture techniques to close wounds: horizontal and vertical. Each arranges the thread differently through the tissue. You make a 5-centimeter cut in pieces of chicken breast with skin. Then you stitch five pieces with horizontal sutures and five with vertical sutures. Each piece gets four stitches. You hang each piece and add weight 10 grams at a time until the stitches tear through. The horizontal sutures held about 500 grams before breaking. The vertical sutures gave way at around 400 grams.

Hypothesis

The hypothesis is that horizontal mattress sutures are able to withstand a higher tension than vertical mattress sutures.

Method & Materials

You will slice 10 pieces of chicken breast to 10 mm thickness each, make a 5-centimeter long cut in the middle of the 10 chicken breasts, and stitch five pieces of the chicken breast using the horizontal mattress suture technique and the remaining five using the vertical mattress suture technique.
You will need 10 pieces of chicken breast, a chopping board, a carving knife, 4 large fishing hooks, 10 weights 100 grams each, 10 weights 10 grams each, a towel hanger, 2 pieces of string, a mattress suture, and a suture needle.

Results

The experiment showed that the horizontal mattress suture was able to withstand about 500 grams of weight compared to the vertical mattress suture, which could withstand only 400 grams. This proves that the hypothesis is true.

Why do this project?

This science project is interesting because it shows how different types of sutures can be used to close an open wound and how they can withstand different amounts of tension.

Also Consider

Consider repeating the experiment using a different number of stitches, or using different techniques, like the corner stitch.

Full project details

Additional information and source material for this project are available below.

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