The clinical effectiveness of lymphaticovenular anastomosis for chronic lymphedema have been proved and reported since the two latter decades. However, due to technical difficulties, supermicrosurgical anastomosis of vessels, inferior than 0.8 mm in caliber, are not routinely used. To simplify microvascular anastomosis, the intra-vascular stenting technique was introduced with Wei et al. for venous microsurgical anastomosis, and by Narushima et al. for lymphaticovenular anastomosis. The aim of the technique is to visualize the lumen of small and translucent vessels, and avoid technical errors. However, it was demonstrated that intimal injuries, secondary to intravascular stents, induce intimal hyperplasia and thrombosis. To minimize the risk of postoperative thrombosis, after lymphaticovenular anastomosis, we developed the hemi-stenting technique.
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