Tissue adhesives for traumatic lacerations in children and adults.

Tissue adhesives have been used for many years to close simple lacerations as an alternative to standard wound closure (sutures, staples, adhesive strips). They offer many potential advantages over standard wound closure, including ease of use, decrease in pain and time to apply, as well as not requiring a follow-up visit for removal. Many studies have compared tissue adhesives and standard wound closure to determine the cosmetic outcome as well as these other secondary outcomes in their respective study populations. However, due to the wide variation in study parameters, there are no generalisable, definitive answers about the effectiveness of tissue adhesives. No study has been adequately powered to assess differences in complications, which are rare.