Surgical Treatment Of Lymphedema

Surgical treatment of Lymphedema

     Surgical treatment of Lymphedema is one of the options of treating Lymphedema. Several surgical methods have been used over the past years for the treatment of Lymphedema.

     The following methods of surgeries have been used during the past years:

• The Kondolean Procedure,
• The Charles Procedure,
• The Sistrunk procedure (1918),
• The Homans-Miller procedure (1936),
• Miller/Sistrunk staged excision operation,
• The Thompson Procedure,
• The Buck Fascia Procedure.

     Other ways have also been in simpler terms, like building a bridge in the affected area by surgery to make the fluid pass easily or by surgically removing the extra lymph filled areas.

     Lymphedema surgeries include two main ways of making the problem lessen out.

1. The first method is to take out all the extra or offending tissues which may be causing trouble for the lymph fluid to pass easily.
2. The second way of treatment is to augment lymph flow through the following methods:
• Attempting to establish communication between the superficial, compromised lymphatics, and the deep, competent system;
• The provision of an alternative route of lymph drainage (external);
• The construction of direct lymphatic to venous anastomoses.

     The Kondolean Procedure

     The Kondolean procedure of surgical treatment of Lymphedema is that the doctors create or establish a communication between the superficial and the deep lymph muscles so that the swelling or scars do not occur.

     The Charles Procedure

     In this procedure skin grafting is done on the muscle that is affected but this procedure is no longer used due to an error that has been written down in the papers mistakenly.

     The Sistrunk procedure (1918)

     In this procedure the affected areas are covered by skin flaps but this procedure has also been stopped using since a very long time.

     The Homans-Miller procedure (1936)

     This method is some what like the Sistrunk method but in this method the skin is covered by two type of flaps. The anterior flaps or the posterior flaps; the flaps are raised to about 1cm high through which the tissue can be exercised down to muscle fascia.

     Miller/Sistrunk staged excision operation

     This procedure is a mixture of the Charles and Miller ways of surgeries through which good results can be achieved.

     The Thompson Procedure

     A deepithelialized dermal flap is buried deep into the system surgically which helps in solving the problem.

     Several issues and questions are related to all kind of surgeries and so are they related to the surgical treatment of Lymphedema. But it is one of the few ways of treating the problem.