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Friday, 14 September 2012

Laser closure of large varicose veins - with radial EVLA


Endovenous surgery (or "keyhole surgery") is taking over from open surgery for varicose veins, as this approach has a great many advantages. ONe of the biggest is the fact that endovenous surgery is performed under local anaesthetic and so the patients are walking home an hour after the procedure.
 
Although "normal" sized varicose veins are easy to treat by experienced vein experts with endovenous techniques, there has always been a concern about the maximum size that can be treated this way.  
 

Duplex Ultrasound of a 3.1 cm diameter Great Saphenous Vein (GSV) successfully closed
by radial firing EVLA (Endovenous Laser Ablation)

Same scan as above with labels for clarity
These images are ultrasound pictures taken yesterday of one of our patients treated 5 weeks ago at The Whiteley Clinic. The man had a vein that was 31mm in diameter (normal size in varicose veins at this point is between about 4-12mm).

The veins was successfully closed by using a side-firing laser and passing the laser backwards and forwards thorough the dilated segment four times. 

Colour flow duplex showing successful closure of the large varicose vein without
any problems with flow in the deep (Femoral) vein.
Same picture as above with labels.
By using novel techniques, we have not yet had a patient with varicose veins that we cannot treat with endovenous techniques under local anaesthetic.

2 comments:

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