Foil Flip System Provides Sutureless Wound Closure

A novel foil flip-over system used as the final layer in wound closure offers excellent cosmetic results and patient comfort.

The OptiClose incision-foil is an innovative sutureless wound closure system under development by Aesculap (Tuttlingen, Germany;) that is intended to eventually serve as a replacement for currently used sutures or staples to connect the edges of skin wounds of up to 7 cm. The device is a transparent sterile foil, which has at its center a 7.5 cm rectangle applied to the intended procedure area before the incision is made. After surgery, integrated flip-over flaps are used to correctly realign the incision and close the wound. After healing, the entire strip is simply removed.


Researchers at Erasmus University Medical Center (Rotterdam, The Netherlandsl) conducted a prospective study of OptiClose incision-foil that involved 96 patients with 103 lesions who underwent skin surgery during a 1.5-year period. Key outcome measures were wound healing, patient comfort, and cosmetic results, based on questionnaires and visual analogue scale (VAS) scores; three independent physicians scored photographs of the scars.

The results showed that the performing surgeon scored wound healing as excellent or good in 96% of the patients, and no wound infections occurred. Of the patients, 92% scored removal of the system as comfortable; median patient grade of scar after one month was 8 out of 10 points. The median independent physician grade of photographs of the scars was 7.7 out of 10. The study was published in the November 2012 issue of Dermatologic Surgery.

“Sutureless foil flip-over is promising, with excellent patient comfort characteristics and good to excellent cosmetic results,” concluded lead author Eva Deerenberg, MD, and colleagues of the department of surgery.

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Erasmus University Medical Center