**6. Conclusion**

As acute wounds created under sterile conditions, the healing of surgical incisions is typically expected to occur without incident within an expected timeframe [1]. However, surgical wounds are atypical in that they depend on a wound closure device to facilitate their progress during a critical wound healing period [20]. The most common surgical wound healing complications of infection, dehiscence, and incisional hernia can all be impacted by the choice and method of wound closure [11, 17, 23, 41]. Sutures are a ubiquitous tool in surgical wound closure however, not all sutures are created equally. Absorbable and nonabsorbable sutures vary in terms of their initial and duration of tissue holding strengths, and some may be better choices than others for specific tissues [7]. Absorbable sutures are available with a range of different breaking strength retention times enabling surgeons to select the one that is strong enough long enough to support the healing timeframe dictated by the specific tissues and patient conditions and then resorb to reduce the potential for foreign body sensation and pain [24]. Absorbable antibacterial sutures are now available which have been shown to reduce the risk of surgical site infection in a wide variety of procedures and all surgical wound classes [30]. As the SSI is not only the most common surgical wound healing complication [16], but a risk factor for other complications such as wound dehiscence and incisional hernia [17], antibacterial sutures technology may have an impact on these healing complications *Surgical Wound Closure and Healing DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105978*

as well. For example, while it is accepted that slowly absorbing sutures decrease the risk of incisional hernia after midline closure relative to faster absorbing sutures [23], a fast-absorbing antibacterial suture did not increase the incisional hernia rate compared to non-antibacterial slowly absorbing suture in a 3-year follow-up study of over one thousand patients [42]. Understanding the features and clinical benefits of different wound closure choices can be an important contribution to optimal surgical wound healing.
