Improving Sternal Healing After Cardiac Surgery: Sternal Wire vs ZIPFIX

Despite a longer time for bone healing and functional recovery, median sternotomy is still the most common approach in cardiac surgery. Sternal closure has traditionally been wire cerclage using stainless steel wires, however, new sternal fixation devices have been developed to improve sternal union. Rigid sternal fixation, although very costly, has demonstrated to be superior to standard wire cerclage both in clinical and biomechanical studies. Although improved sternal healing was observed with rigid plate fixation in a randomized controlled trial in high risk patients, the wound complication rate with plate fixation was almost double that of wire cerclage albeit not statistically significant.

A novel sternal closure system denoted the sternal ZIPFIX system (DePuySynthes, Companies of Johnson and Johnson, West Over, PA, US) is biocompatible Poly-Ether-Ether-Ketone implant that was developed for fast and reliable sternal fixation following median sternotomy. First published case series utilized the sternal ZIPFIX System demonstrating effective sternal stability at 30 days. Another study has demonstrated no significant difference in the incidence of sternal wound infection following the ZIPFIX system compared to standard wire cerclage while Stelly et al., 2015 demonstrated reduced risk of deep sternal wound infection for patients using ZIPFIX. The ZIPFIX system demonstrates a higher resistance of fatigue failure and has a larger implant-to-bone contact area compared to stainless steel wires thereby reducing the risk of bone cut through. Placement of the cable ties are done similar to wire cerclage thereby not affecting time for sternal closure and training.

The objective of this study is to determine whether sternal reconstruction using the ZIPFIX system compared to standard wire cerclage would improve bone healing, patient function, and decrease postoperative pain.