A new MIT-designed surgical sticky tape can be applied quickly and easily, like duct tape to a pipe, to repair leaks and tears in the gastrointestinal tract and other tissues and organs. Credit: Courtesy of the researchers

The sticky patch could be quickly applied to repair gut leaks and tears.

A staple on any engineer’s workbench, duct tape is a quick and dependable fix for cracks and tears in many structural materials.

In numerous experiments, the team has shown the patch can be quickly stuck to large tears and punctures in the colon, stomach, and intestines of various animal models. The adhesive binds strongly to tissues within several seconds and holds for over a month. It is also flexible, able to expand and contract with a functioning organ as it heals. Once an injury is fully healed, the patch gradually degrades without causing inflammation or sticking to surrounding tissues.

The team envisions the surgical sticky patch could one day be stocked in operating rooms and used as a fast and safe alternative or reinforcement to hand-sewn sutures to repair leaks and tears in the gut and other biological tissues.

“We think this surgical tape is a good base technology to be made into an actual, off-the-shelf product,” says Hyunwoo Yuk, a research scientist in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. “Surgeons could use it as they use duct tape in the nonsurgical world. It doesn’t need any preparation or prior step. Just take it out, open, and use.”

Yuk, the study’s co-lead and co-corresponding author, and his colleagues published their results on February 2, 2022, in the journal Science Translational Medicine. Other co-authors include MIT postdoc and lead author Jingjing Wu; project supervisor and co-corresponding author Xuanhe Zhao, who is a professor of mechanical engineering and of civil and environmental engineering at MIT; and collaborators from the Mayo Clinic and the Southern University of Science and Technology.

A gut instinct

The new surgical duct tape builds on the team’s 2019 design for a double-sided tape. That early iteration comprised a single layer that was sticky on both sides and designed to join two wet surfaces together.

The adhesive was made from polyacrylic