D. J. Bradley, S. Chaney, S. Fischer, Fort Wayne Metals Research Products Corporation, Fort Wayne, IN
The end use requirements for suture needles present difficult challenges to identify the critical characteristics required for wire stock used in their manufacture. These challenges include identification of proper parameters to be measured on wire stock that will adequately predict performance within a needle manufacturer’s operations and surgical use. The purpose of this paper is to identify the key mechanical and surface characteristics of needle wire stock, evaluate the correlation of these characteristics to final needle performance and measure the performance of current commercially available alloys against these characteristics.