In surgery or medical procedure, a ligature consists of a piece of thread (

suture Suture, literally meaning "seam", may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Suture'' (album), a 2000 album by American Industrial rock band Chemlab * ''Suture'' (film), a 1993 film directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel * Suture (ban ...

) tied around an anatomical structure, usually a blood vessel or another hollow structure (e.g.

urethra The urethra (from Greek οὐρήθρα – ''ourḗthrā'') is a tube that connects the urinary bladder to the urinary meatus for the removal of urine from the body of both females and males. In human females and other primates, the urethra ...

) to shut it off.

History

The principle of ligation is attributed to

Hippocrates Hippocrates of Kos (; grc-gre, Ἱπποκράτης ὁ Κῷος, Hippokrátēs ho Kôios; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician of the classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history o ...

and

Galen Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus ( el, Κλαύδιος Γαληνός; September 129 – c. AD 216), often Anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher in the Roman Empire. Considered to be o ...

. In

ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom ...

, ligatures were used to treat hemorrhoids. The concept of a ligature was reintroduced some 1,500 years later by

Ambroise Paré Ambroise Paré (c. 1510 – 20 December 1590) was a French barber surgeon who served in that role for kings Henry II, Francis II, Charles IX and Henry III. He is considered one of the fathers of surgery and modern forensic pathology and a pi ...

, and finally it found its modern use in 1870–80, made popular by

Jules-Émile Péan Jules-Émile Péan (29 November 1830 – 20 January 1898) was one of the great French surgeons of the 19th century. Péan was born in 1830 in Marboué, french department of Eure-et-Loir. He studied at the college of Chartres and then studied m ...

Procedure

With a blood vessel the surgeon will clamp the vessel perpendicular to the axis of the artery or vein with a hemostat, then secure it by ligating it; i.e. using a piece of suture around it before dividing the structure and releasing the hemostat. It is different from a

tourniquet A tourniquet is a device that is used to apply pressure to a limb or extremity in order to stop the flow of blood. It may be used in emergencies, in surgery, or in post-operative rehabilitation. A simple tourniquet can be made from a stick an ...

in that the tourniquet will not be secured by knots and it can therefore be released/tightened at will. Ligature is one of the remedies to treat skin tag, or acrochorda. It is done by tying string or dental floss around the acrochordon to cut off the blood circulation. Home remedies include commercial ligation bands that can be placed around the base of skin tags.

References

Surgical procedures and techniques {{Treatment-stub kk:Лигатура

History

Procedure

See also

References