Résumé
Immediate patency assessment of a completed microvascular anastomosis is considered an essential step in a microsurgical procedure. The most frequently used patency test is the milking patency test, which is too traumatic for use in clinical microsurgery. An atraumatic patency test remains to be devised. According to the principle of mechanics that rolling friction is smaller than sliding friction, we designed the so-called rolling patency test. The femoral arteries of Wistar rats were used in the experimental study to make a comparison between the two patency tests. The result showed that intact endothelial cells covered more than 90% of the inner wall of the artery in the rolling patency test, but less than 25% in the milking patency test. The study suggests that the rolling patency test is a reliable and atraumatic immediate patency test for use in clinical microsurgery.