Today I gave a guest talk on "Vein Screening" at The Venous Forum, the
specialist vein meeting held at the Vascular Surgical Society
AGM. The meeting was in L
iverpool and was very well attended.
It was a very interesting subject to speak on.
In the USA, there are large numbers of hospitals and clinics offering vein screening for free. In these hospitals and clinics, people who are worried that there veins might not be working and might be going to cause a problem in the future can go along for a simple Doppler or Ultrasound test.
If found to be positive, then they can go ahead with treatment to prevent varicose veins or the
other problems venous reflux causes - Aching legs, venous eczema, swollen ankles, brown discolouration of the skin, ulcers etc.
In the UK, currently we don't offer this sort of service. In general UK doctors tend to wait until a patient has a problem before checking their veins to see if they are working or not.
Having looked at this in detail, I think we will be seeing an increase in Venous Screening in the UK in the near future.
