Lymphedema: Medical Treatments

(asked on 12th April 2024) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of providing lymphaticovenous anastomosis surgery on the NHS.


Answered by
Andrew Stephenson Portrait
Andrew Stephenson
This question was answered on 18th April 2024

No formal assessment has been made of the potential merits of providing lymphaticovenous anastomosis surgery on the National Health Service. On 16 April 2024, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published interventional procedures guidance that states that lymphovenous anastomosis during axillary dissection for preventing secondary lymphoedema in adults with breast cancer, can be used in the NHS while more evidence is generated, and that it can only be used with special arrangements for clinical governance, consent and audit, or research. The NICE’s interventional procedures guidance makes recommendations for the NHS on whether procedures are sufficiently safe and efficacious for use in routine clinical practice.

Reticulating Splines