Symposium on Microsurgery

Abstract

Microsurgery, the art of operating with the aid of an operating microscope, has found its place in many surgical specialties. For a reconstructive or replantation surgeon, it serves as a method to transplant or salvage composite tissue by the anastomosis of blood vessels in the realm of 1 mm in external diameter. As Dr Harry J. Buncke, Jr, the great surgical innovator, has commented: Many have contributed to the slow development and rapid birth–some with ideas, others with many clinical efforts, still others with persistent animal experiments, and finally a handful of aggressive and courageous clinical surgeons forced the microsurgical techniques into the world of clinical reality. This book represents the current clinical status of microsurgery as presented at the First International Symposium on Microsurgery, conducted under the auspices of the Educational Foundation of the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons, and held in New York in October 1974.