Patent ID: 8865205

Claim:
A bioswellable suture having an underlying suture and a bioswellable coating thereon, wherein the bioswellable coating comprises an aliphatic polyether glycol grafted with a mixture of cyclic monomers comprising from about 85 to about 99 percent by mole of ε-caprolactone and from about 15 to about 1 percent by mole of at least one additional monomer selected from the group consisting of glycolide, p-dioxanone, lactide, and a morpholinedione, to form a triblock polymer with a central block derived from the aliphatic polyether glycol and terminal blocks derived from cyclic monomers, wherein the coating exhibits an inherent viscosity of less than about 0.7 dL/g and heat of fusion of less than about 70 J/g, and wherein the coating comprises from about 0.1 to about 15 percent by weight of the total suture weight, the coated suture exhibiting an increase in cross-sectional area upon soaking in saline for one hour; and the grafted aliphatic polyether glycol is a polyethylene glycol having a molecular weight of 0.4 to 15 kDa.