[Technique of inverted stripping in varicose vein surgery]

Invaginative Stripping reduces invasivity in varicose veins surgery. Therefore this technique meets increasing popularity. With invaginative stripping however the saphenous vein sometimes tears off. This can be prevented in part of the cases by cutting the branches of the saphenous vein during stripping with the "sickle" (Fig. 1). If this does not work then the remaining parts of the saphenous vein must be stripped in the conventional manner with a stripper head. But: How can the stripper be introduced again into the stripper canal? One end of the tie which is used to knot the saphenous vein to the stripper is left long. In this way the long end of the tie remains in the stripper canal after invaginative stripping. This tie then can be used to pull another stripper into the stripper canal. In order to prevent the ordinary tip of the stripper to be caught in the subcutaneous tissue a special tip is used which we call "dolphin" (Fig. 4). It is a fish-shaped gadget with a mouth or a hook on one side for the tie and a thread at the other side so that the second stripper can be screwed to it. Another possibility is to pull a second stripper after the first one by means of the "torpedo" (Fig. 2) whenever invaginative stripping is intended. The second stripper then can be used for conventional stripping if necessary.