[Clinical progress of microsurgical management for lymphedema]

To review the clinical progress of microsurgical management for lymphedema.

The literature on microsurgical treatment for lymphedema at home and abroad in recent years was reviewed and analyzed.

At present, conservative treatment is the main treatment for lymphedema, which has limited effectiveness only for early stages of lymphedema; and it is not curative and demands patient compliance. In contrast, microsurgical approaches can solve the problems in the prevention or management of lymphedema and showed promising results, such as lymphatic-venous anastomosis (LVA), vascularized lymph node transfer (VLNT), and other lymphatic reconstructions.

Microsurgical approaches like LVA and VLNT have been broadly used in recent years, the effectiveness and safety have been proved. But the evidence of long-term randomized controlled studies is still required to establish standard treatment practices.