HISTORICAL NOTICE   

International Angiology 2000 March;19(1):84-8

Copyright © 2001 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

E. Kondoleon: The man behind the procedure

Dimakakos P. B., Arkadopoulos N.

From the Department of Vascular Surgery, 2nd Surgical Clinic, University of Athens School of Medicine, Aretaieion Hospital, Athens, Greece

Historical events and their in-depth analysis have much to teach us about medicine today. Moreover, the lives of those who have made their mark in medical history can be a source of inspiration to future generations of medical scientists. A case in point is the career of E. Kondoleon, originator of the surgical procedure that bears his name.
Methods. Retrieval in the ­archives of the "Areteion" and "Hippocration" hos­pi­tals, where E. Kondoleon had ­worked and ­passed away, togeth­er with infor­ma­tion ­obtained from the Chair of History of Medicine of the University of Athens, as well as infor­ma­tion taken from the Hellenic Surgical Society rel­a­tive­ to his life and the ­motives which led him to the Kondoleon sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dure name­ly: Wide exci­sion of the fas­cia and con­com­i­tant par­tial exci­sion of the hyper­troph­ic tis­sue in the treat­ment of lym­phoed­e­ma.
Results. The Kondoleon oper­a­tive pro­ce­dure was not a sim­ple appli­cable idea of a sur­gi­cal tech­nique but the ­result of a long-term system­at­i­cal study of the anat­o­my and pathoph­y­sio­lo­gy of the lym­pho­vas­cu­lar ­system as well as the con­tin­u­a­tion of their experi­men­tal appli­ca­tion. Thus in the begin­ning of our cen­tu­ry, Kondoleon took the lead of car­ry­ing out his own tech­nique on the human which for more than 50 years was the ­object of dis­cus­sion and appli­ca­tion in the treat­ment of lym­phoed­e­ma.
Conclusions. Although “the micro­world” of the elec­tron­ic micro­scope and the con­ven­tion­al micro­scope of sur­gery have illu­mi­nat­ed many sec­tions of pathoph­y­sio­lo­gy and has led to newer evo­lu­tion­ary tac­tics (vas­cu­lar anas­to­mos­es, trans­plan­ta­tion of lymph-ves­sels) in the man­age­ment of lym­phoed­e­ma, the Kondoleon oper­a­tive pro­ce­dure has given the nec­es­sary stim­u­li for these developments. As with other prom­i­nent, cel­e­brat­ed men in the his­to­ry of inves­ti­ga­tion, Kondoleon had a dra­mat­i­c end.