Medical Textiles
The suture only has to outlast the wound. Strength retention is a race between hydrolysis and healing.
— N
At the stated time in vivo
Decision-support only, and a simplification of real behaviour: hydrolysis accelerates with temperature, pH and infection, braided sutures degrade differently from monofilament, and mass absorption continues long after strength is gone. Suture selection is a clinical decision governed by the manufacturer's in vivo retention data, not by a model.
Absorbable Suture Tensile Degradation Calculator — free, with the formula and a worked example, at Textile School.