Microsurgery

Microsurgery is a general term for surgery requiring an operating microscope. The most obvious developments have been procedures developed to allow anastomosis of successively smaller blood vessels and nerves (typically 1 mm in diameter) which have allowed transfer of tissue from one part of the body to another and re-attachment of severed parts. Microsurgical techniques are utilized by several specialties today, such as: general surgery, ophthalmology, orthopedic surgery, gynecological surgery, otolaryngology, neurosurgery, oral and maxillofacial surgery, plastic surgery, podiatric surgery and pediatric surgery.

History

Otolaryngologists were the first physicians to use microsurgical techniques. A Swedish otolaryngologist, Carl-Olof Siggesson Nylén (1892–1978), was the father of microsurgery. In 1921, in the University of Stockholm, he built the first surgical microscope, a modified monocular Brinell-Leitz microscope. At first he used it for operations in animals. In November of the same year he used it to operate on a patient with chronic otitis who had a labyrinthine fistula. Nylen's microscope was soon replaced by a binocular microscope, developed in 1922 by his colleague Gunnar Holmgren (1875–1954).