Standardized suturing can prevent slackening or bursting suture lines in midline abdominal incisions and defects.

PURPOSE: Incisional hernias often follow open abdominal surgery. A small-stitch-small-bite suture might close the incision durably. We analyzed specific details of this closure technique and assessed their influence on the closure stability. METHODS: The effects of cyclic loads, simulating coughs were investigated on a bench test. We prepared porcine bellies in the median line and bovine flanks parallel to the muscle fibers with 15 cm long incisions. Then we punched round or rhomboid defects with a diameter of 5-10 cm into the center of the incision. Monomax® 2-0 and Maxon® 1 and 2-0 were used as suture materials. We tested the durability of the closure with pressure impacts of 210 mmHg repeated 425 times. Throughout the experiments, we modified the suturing technique, the surgeon, the tissue tension, the defect size and shape and the suture diameter. RESULTS: Standardizing the suture technique improved the durability of the closure significantly. Any other variations showed minor influences after standardization. All incisions with round defects up to 7.5 cm width withstood 425 impacts using standardized suturing. Unstandardized sutures failed in all cases. When closing an incision with a 10 cm wide defect, the tissues ruptured frequently next to the suture line. We defined criteria to standardize this suturing technique. For the first time, we developed a suture factor related to the durability of a sutured tissue closure. We integrated the suture factor into the concept of biomechanically durable repairs. CONCLUSIONS: Suturing the abdominal wall with a standardized suturing technique improves its durability significantly.

Association of microRNA-7 and its binding partner CDR1-AS with the prognosis and prediction of 1st-line tamoxifen therapy in breast cancer.

The large number of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) and their breadth of functionalities has fuelled many studies on their roles in cancer. We previously linked four microRNAs to breast cancer prognosis. One of these microRNAs, hsa-miR-7, was found to be regulated by another type of ncRNA, the circular non-coding RNA (circRNA) CDR1-AS, which contains multiple hsa-miR-7 binding sites. Based on this finding, we studied the potential clinical value of this circRNA on breast cancer prognosis in a cohort based on a cohort that was previously analysed for hsa-miR-7 and in an adjuvant hormone-naïve cohort for 1st-line tamoxifen treatment outcomes, in which we also analysed hsa-miR-7. A negative correlation was observed between hsa-miR-7 and CDR1-AS in both cohorts. Despite associations with various clinical metrics (e.g., tumour grade, tumour size, and relapse location), CDR1-AS was neither prognostic nor predictive of relevant outcomes in our cohorts. However, we did observe stromal CDR1-AS expression, suggesting a possible cell-type specific interaction. Next to the known association of hsa-miR-7 expression with poor prognosis in primary breast cancer, we found that high hsa-miR-7 expression was predictive of an adverse response to tamoxifen therapy and poor progression-free and post-relapse overall survival in patients with recurrent disease.