The corner stitch is a common suture technique. It used to close

wound A wound is a rapid onset of injury that involves laceration, lacerated or puncture wound, punctured skin (an ''open'' wound), or a bruise, contusion (a ''closed'' wound) from blunt force physical trauma, trauma or compression. In pathology, a '' ...

s that are angled or Y-shaped without appreciably compromising blood supply to the wound tip. The corner stitch is a variation of the

horizontal mattress stitch The horizontal mattress stitch is a suture technique used to close wounds. It everts skin well and spreads tension along the wound edge. This makes it ideal for holding together fragile skin as well as skin under high tension such as the distant e ...

, and is sometimes called the "half-buried horizontal mattress stitch". The needle enters the skin on one side of the obtuse angle of the wound, passes through the deep

dermis The dermis or corium is a layer of skin between the epidermis (with which it makes up the cutis) and subcutaneous tissues, that primarily consists of dense irregular connective tissue and cushions the body from stress and strain. It is divided i ...

of the corner flap, and is re-inserted through the dermis of the other side of the obtuse wound angle. It finally re-emerges through the

epidermis The epidermis is the outermost of the three layers that comprise the skin, the inner layers being the dermis and hypodermis. The epidermis layer provides a barrier to infection from environmental pathogens and regulates the amount of water rele ...

on the side of the obtuse angle, adjacent to the initial entry point.

References

Surgical stitches {{surgery-stub