What does the "2-0" mean when referring to a 2-0 silk pursestring?

Answer 1

2-0 refers to the size of the sutures. The sizes range from 11-0 (smallest diameter) to 7 (the largest diameter). The silk is the material that the suture is made out of and the purse string is the type of stitching used (way to close a wound).

Answer 2

e13ski is essentially correct. I didn't know all the ranges. When I was doing my surgical rotations (somewhere back in the Pleistocene era), what we called 2-0 was written 00, 4-0 was written 0000, and so forth.

Probably the commonest use of a purse string suture is to close the stump after an appendectomy.