Study Study
type 		Number of patients Suture samples Results
Yaman et al. [9] Randomized clinical trial 43 Monofilament sutures: polydioxanone, poly-glycolic acid-cocaprolactone, polypropylene, polyvinylidene difluoride, polyamide, PTFE.
Multifilament sutures: poly-glycolide-colactide, fast absorbable poly-glycolide-colactide, silk, polyester 		Multifilament sutures showed a greater microbial load than monofilament sutures
(P < 0.001)
Dragovic et al. [10] Randomized clinical study 32 Multifilament sutures: Sofsilk®, Polysorb® (Covidien PLC - Medtronic, Inc.; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA).
Monofilament sutures: Surgipro®, Caprosyn® (Covidien PLC - Medtronic, Inc.) 		All suture threads were analysed, and substantially more amount of dental plaque was found on multifilament sutures compared to monofilament
Sh et al. [60] Double-blinded randomized clinical trial study 27 Vicryl®, Vicryl® Plus (Ethicon, Inc. - Johnson & Johnson MedTech Co.) The mean (SD) CFU-length ratio for the total bacterial species in the patients of our study for Vicryl® and Vicryl® Plus was 1.19 (SD 0.44) and 1.03 (SD 0.31), respectively (P = 0.005)
Dragović et al. [61] Randomized clinical trial 10 Surgipro® polypropylene, Sofsilk® (Covidien PLC - Medtronic, Inc.) The average number of bacteria on silk was higher than on polypropylene
Yalçın et al. [62] Randomized clinical trial 60 Non-absorbable sutures: silk, polyester (Boz Tibbi Malzeme A.S; Ankara, Turkey).
Absorbable sutures: polyglycolic acid, polyglycolide-co-lactide (Boz Tibbi Malzeme A.S) 		It was found that on the silk were the biggest amount of aerobic bacteria and anaerobic bacteria was found on silk and polyglycolide-co-lactide samples the most
Bucci et al. [63] Randomized clinical trial 30 Ethicon® silk 4/0 (Ethicon, Inc. - Johnson & Johnson MedTech Co.), Dafilon® 4/0 and Safil® 4/0 (B. Braun Melsungen SE; Melsungen, Germany) Ethicon® silk 4/0 had the highest level of retention of cocci and bacilli (P = 0.01)
Sala-Pérez et al. [64] Randomized clinical trial 20 Ethicon® Monocryl® Plus, Perma-Hand® silk (Ethicon, Inc. - Johnson & Johnson MedTech Co.) Silk suture showed significantly higher values for both aerobes and anaerobes (P = 0.001)
Krishna et al. [65] Single-center prospective comparative study 40 Ethicon® Prolene®, Vicryl® Plus, Monocryl®, Perma-Hand® silk (Ethicon, Inc. - Johnson & Johnson MedTech Co.) The Prolene® group had the least CFU in total colony count, while the silk group had the highest CFU in total colony count (P = 0.001)
Uysal et al. [66] Prospective study 38 Silk, knotless/barbed The Plaque Index values of the barbed sutures and aerobic, anaerobic, and aerobic/anaerobic mean CFUs were statistically significantly lower than that of the silk sutures (P < 0.05)
Anand et al. [67] Prospective-double blinded clinical study 50 Ethicon® Monocryl® Plus, Perma-Hand® silk (Ethicon, Inc. - Johnson & Johnson MedTech Co.) In relation to the colony count silk group showed higher number of colonisations than antibacterial suture (P < 0.0005)
Parrini et al. [68] Quantitative pilot study 10 100% PTFE, silk Bacterial retention and accumulation of bacteria resulted statistically greater in silk sutures rather than PTFE sutures, both in Brain Heart Infusion samples (P = 0.003) and Wilkins-Chalgren samples (P = 0.002)

CFU = colony forming unit; PTFE = polytetrafluoroethylene polymer; SD = standard deviation.