What kind of sutures are used for muscle plication?

I have used permanent in the past, but in slim patients they were touchable with time, and ocassionally I had extrusion through a leaking hole, so years ago moved to modern resorbable ones, with same technical success and no such issues.

I use permanent sutures for the muscle repair because I do a tight repair and I don't want the suture coming undone or dissolving too soon. These are placed deep and buried so they are not palpable. However, your plastic surgeon may have her own reasons for doing the repair with dissolvable sutures so just ask her why. If you are thin and will have minimal skin thickness over the muscle repair, the permanent sutures can be palpable so that may be why your plastic surgeon wants to use them on you! Good luck!!

I always use permanent sutures for abdominoplasty (soft braided nylon so the sutures can not be felt through this skin) because I want to make sure that the repair of the diastasis (rectus muscle separation) stays strong for a long time. However, there are plenty of plastic surgeons who use long lasting strong absorbable sutures for the same repair with good results. It is a personal preference. Most of the other sutures used that are closer to the skin including the belly button are dissolvable.

In my experience, permanent sutures are needed for optimal repair of the abdominal wall fascia.  Braided nylon sutures are used most frequently due to their high tensile strength and soft knots. I am not aware of any dissolvable sutures that last a year.  The longest lasting absorbable sutures lose 50% of their strength in approximately 6 weeks, which is not long enough to allow complete healing of the fascia.

Thank you for the question. Either permanent or absorbable sutures can be used successfully for abdominal wall plication during tummy tuck surgery. Personally, I  use both absorbable sutures (PDS) and non-absorbable sutures (Ethibond) for the plication; this is a two layered repair, with a very low incidence of  muscle separation. You may find the attached link and video, helpful to you as a learn more. Best wishes.