The TachoSil-Pledget Stitch: Towards Eradication of Suture Hole Bleeding

We describe a novel suture consisting of a small piece of TachoSil (Nycomed, Copenhagen, Denmark) and a felt pledget—the TachoSil-pledget stitch—which was used to facilitate mechanical and biologic hemostasis in 5 patients undergoing aortic arch aneurysm repair. The TachoSil-pledget stitch achieved good or very good hemostasis at all 56 bleeding points to which it was applied, while 5 of 12 points to which a conventional felt-pledget stitch was applied required additional stitching or an additional hemostatic method.