Hand veins - Endovenous laser closure of hand veins

Prominent hand veins have always posed a problem for venous surgeons. Many patients ask for treatment for prominent hand veins - but until recently, very little has shown to be effective or cosmetic.

A recent advance in removing these hand veins has been "endovenous laser ablation of hand veins".

This afternoon, two cases were performed by Mark Whiteley at Absolute Aesthetics (www.AbsoluteAesthetics.co.uk) the aesthetics division of The Whiteley Clinic.

Using only local anaesthetic, the whole procedure took about 30-45 mins. The patients came in an hour before the surgery for marking and anaesthetic cream to the skin.

The procedure itself was performed in a walk-in walk-out local anaesthetic theatre - with pinholes only where the laser fibre was inserted into the veins.

Both patients were discharged home without any complication wearing compression gloves which they were instructed to wear for one week.

The advent of endovenous ablation of unwanted hand veins is a major step forward in hand rejuvenation. When used in combination with our other techniques such as hyaluronic acid filler for bony hands and IPL or skin preparation creams for sun damage, hand rejuvenation should now become much closer to the ideal that patients want.

Endovenous laser ablation of hand veins under local anaesthetic is now available at Absolute Aesthetics as part of a hand rejuvenation package.

Steam vein sclerosis - SVS

A new technique is being reported for the treatment of Varicose Veins (Daily Mail, 19th October 2010) called Steam Vein Sclerosis (SVS).

This technique follows the same principles of Endovenous Laser Ablation (EVLA) and Radiofrequency Ablation (RFA) of varicose veins - but claims to be quicker.

It is well understood that heating veins destroys them permanently - and with Laser and Radiofrequency Ablations this heat energy can be measure precisely - a measurement called the LEED (Linear Endovenous Energy Density).

The potential problem with the steam is that it would appear difficult, if not impossible, to measure this energy given to the vein wall.

This might the reason that the report says that only 13 of the 20 veins remained closed after 1 year - very poor results compared to The Whiteley Protocol (which uses EVLA or RFA depending on vein anatomy) which has shown closure rates of over 99% at 5 years.

It will be interesting to see if research can improve on these results.

New video - Botulinum Toxin treatment for under arm sweating

Whiteley Clinic paper on clots (Thromboses) after keyhole surgery for varicose veins

Today we pulished some of our old data as to how rare clots and DVT are after the Whiteley Clinic keyhole techniques for varicose veins.

Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) after Venous Thermoablation Techniques: Rates of Endovenous Heat-induced Thrombosis (EHIT) and Classical DVT after Radiofrequency and Endovenous Laser Ablation in a Single Centre.
Marsh P, Price BA, Holdstock J, Harrison C, Whiteley MS.
Eur J Vasc Endovasc Surg. 2010 Jul 22. [Epub ahead of print]

Now that our techiques are all walk-in, walk-out local anasethetics procedures, the risk of clots have fallen even lower.

International prize for Whiteley Clinic research student in Milan

George Badham, the Whiteley Clinic Venous Research Fellow summer 2010, won the prize for third place at the International Vascular and Endovascular Course (IVEC) and the European Congress of the International Society of Vascular Surgery (ISVS) in Milan with his presentation about treating varicose veins using the keyhole surgery technique RFiTT.



George, who is a third-year medical student at Cardiff University, was the only medical student presenting, with all of the other presenters in the prize sessions being qualified doctors specialising in vascular surgery. Despite being over a decade younger than the other presenters shortlisted for the prize, the quality of Georges research and his excellent presentation to an international audience of vascular experts, secured him enough votes to win third place.





The Whiteley Clinic has a strong research tradition and offers research projects to students who wish to get to medical school, medical students and also junior doctors. Each year, one or two applicants are accepted and are given one or more projects to complete, depending on the time they have available and also their own motivation.

Despite careful supervision, not all research fellows manage to get their research completed. It takes considerable dedication to see a research project through to completion and then on to presentation and publication.





This summer, two research fellows were appointed, both of whom are exceptionally hard workers and have completed their projects.

George Badham's research was a study using a benchtop model to simulate keyhole treatment of varicose veins using the RFiTT technique. He showed that the technique that had been originally recommended by surgeons elsewhere in this country and Europe had inadequate affect, making the technique appear less successful than it could be.





With his supervisor, Mark Whiteley, they developed and prove that changing the power settings and the technique of applying the power to the vein resulted in optimal conditions likely to destroy any vein treated this way.

This project will be submitted for presentation in the UK to inform UK surgeons how best to use this technique, and hopefully this presentation will be in the first half of 2011, depending on which meeting it is presented at.

The results will be published in a peer-reviewed journal in the near future.


Mark Whiteley was also an invited lecturer at the same meeting, speaking on the current thoughts on Foam Sclerotherapy in the treatment of varicose veins.

George Badham at IVEC and ISVS Milan

This morning, George Badham - Whiteley Clinic Venous Research Fellow Summer 2010 and Cardiff Medical Student - lead the discussion into the treatment of Carotid Stenoses at the IVEC (International Vascular and Endovascular Course) and European Congress of the ISVS (International Society for Vascular Surgery) in Milan.



The picture shows George posing his question that lead the discussion following a series of presentations by world experts in Carotid disease - including Carlos H Timaran (Dalla, Tx, USA), Michel Henry (Nancy, France), Sumaira MacDonald (Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK), Alison Halliday (London and Oxford), Gaetano Deleo (Milan, Italy) and Klaus D. Mathias (Dortmund, Germany).


The panel for the session was made up of President: Giancarlo Bracale (Naples, Italy) with Chairpersons: Ali Abu Rahma (Charleston, WV, USA) and Maria Grazia Bordoni (Milan, Italy) with Discussant: George Badham (Guildford, UK).

Mark Whiteley is a member of the faculty and wil be giving his invited lecture on Foam Sclerotherapy for the treatment of varicose veins tomorrow. George Badham will be presenting his research into radiofrequency treatment of varicose veins in the free paper session, also tomorrow morning.

Leg ulcer healed at The Whiteley Clinic

Guildford Rugby - Sponsored by The Whiteley Clinic

Guildford Rugby Club (team picture left) recorded another win this weekend:

Guildford 29 - 27 London Cornish

This has put Guildford 2nd in their league - London 2 South West - Level 7 of the whole RFU.

With plans to raise the final money for new facilities, Guildford is a club really starting to move upwards and forwards.

Embarrassing Bodies - Channel 4 - Laser Sweat Ablation

This evening Mark Whiteley was featured performing an operation for arm-pit sweating (axillary hyperhidrosis) on Embarrassing Bodies - Channel 4.

Faye, the patient, was a 19 year old girl who had previously been on Embarrassing Bodies with axillary hyperhidrosis. She had been sent for Botox - which had only worked for 6 months each time.

She wanted a permanent cure - so she was referred to Mark Whiteley at The Whiteley Clinic for Laser Sweat Ablation. She had this walk-in walk-out procedure under local anaesthetic and was on her way home 2 hours later.

On Embarrassing Bodies she said how pleased she was with the result. She had 2 tiny scars on each side, did not have to worry at all about sweating anymore and had gone out and bought a whole new wardrobe of clothes!!!

Laser Sweat Ablation was introduced into the UK by Mark Whiteley who performed the first Laser Sweat Ablation procedure on 5th March 2009. He and his researcher, Sophie Strong, are continually modifying and improving the LSA technique to improve the results.

Tetren - Game by Andrew and Mark Whiteley and friends from 1992

Andrew Whiteley, Mark Whiteley's brother, wrote a computer game in 1992 called Tetren. Andrew did all of the programming, Mark Whiteley drew and animated all of the graphics and Mike Kingham composed the music.

Many hundreds of people played the game via shareware and contacted us to say how much they loved it.

As it was written for the Amiga 500 computer, it has not been available to run on modern computers for many years. However, with a new emulation program, Tetren can now be played on normal modern computers!!!

If you would like to play - click on the two links below and save them to your desk top. One is a zip file which contains all of the files that you will need - the other is a set of instructions on how to get Tetren working.

We all hope that you have as much fun as we had so many years ago.

Click here to download Tetren and Program to run it

Click here to download instructions on how to run and play Tetren

Channel 4 - Embarrassing Bodies - Friday 8th October 2010 - 9pm

Marverick TV have informed us that Mr Mark Whiteley will be featured on Embarrassing Bodies this week, performing a Laser Sweat Ablation (LSA) procedure,

Mark introduced the LSA procedure to the UK in March 2010 and has been the leading practitioner in this area of surgery ever since.

Results and information about LSA can be seen on http://lasersweatablation.blogspot.com and www.lasersweatablation.co.uk

Vogue - November 2010 Edition

Mark Whiteley appears in the new edition of Vogue - which is just hitting the news stands.

The article appears in the Beauty section - under "Legs" - where Mark Whiteley is recommended for getting rid of varicose and thread veins.

Guildford Rugby beats Twickenham

Guildford Rugby club beat Twickenham yesterday in an away match, 17 - 10.

This vitory puts Guildford RFC in second place in the league.

As a major sponsor of Guildford RFC, The Whiteley Clinic is thrilled by their continuing success.

Click here to see League Table:

Roko cancer appeal

This evening Mark Whiteley (The Whiteley Clinic) and Vicki Smith (Absolute Aesthetics) were sponsors and guests of the Roko Cancer fund-raising event in London (www.rokocancer.org)

Mark And Vicki sat on the top table with Lord and Lady Sheikh, Dr Vince Cable MP and Steven Timms MP and his wife.

The evening was a great success - largely due to the efforts of Nikki Hubbard.

Lord Shiekh and his wife were fantastic company and were both tremendous entertainment for all at the event. Sue Hill (Detective Chief Superintendent in her other life) was a fabulous auctioneer.

The founder of the charity, Mr. Ajinder Pal Singh Chawla was a lovely host, introducing all of his guests and adding a serenity to the proceedings which added to a very special evening.