Sutures
The two most commonly used systems for suture sizes are:
- USP system.
- Brown and Sharp gauge.
USP system
For eg size 9-0 stands for 9 0's in a row, 000000000. Since this is too cumbersome to write, it is transcribed as 9-0, where 9 is for the number of zeros, followed by a hyphen, followed by the digit "0" without a space. Similarly, 000 will be 3-0 and 0000 will be 4-0. Sizes greater than 0 are expressed by whole numbers.
A symbol # is placed before the suture size while transcribing with any space in between.
For example:
- Number three 0 Dacron is to be transcribed as "#3-0 Dacron."
- Number two Prolene is transcribed as "#2 Prolene."
Brown and Sharp Gauge:
For example:
Number thirty stainless steel wire is transcribed as "#30 stainless steel wire
This system is meant for expressing stainless suture steel sutures only. Here, whole numbers from 40 through 20 are used to specify the size in ascending amount wherein 40 is the smallest size and 20 is the largest. As mentioned before, symbol # is used if the word number is dictated before suture size. stands for United States Pharmacopeia System. This system classifies sizes of all types of suture materials. The start sizes range from 11-0, which is the smallest size to 7, which is the largest size.