Description

This session will be helpful in expanding physician knowledge base and improving clinical confidence and effectiveness in treating patients with varicose veins. The session will address diagnostic evaluation of patients with varicose veins, using duplex scanning to confirm pathologic superficial truncal reflux. The session will also cover compression therapy, open surgical and percutaneous endovenous therapies for lower extremity varicosities, including thermal and non-thermal ablations of the great, small and accessory saphenous veins. The treatment of perforating veins and the concomitant treatment of varicose tributaries with sclerotherapy or mini-phlebectomy will also be discussed.

The faculty will use case vignette to design treatment strategies and demonstrate how to put the recommendations from the evidence based clinical practice guidelines into practice. A short survey will be conducted before and after the session, and follow-up survey will follow 60 days later to gauge and evaluate if guidelines were easy to translate into daily clinical practice.

Target Audience

Vascular surgeons, interventional radiologists and cardiologists, dermatologists, phlebologists, vein disease specialists, vascular medicine physicians, residents and trainees in these disciplines, physicians and non-physician clinicians (e.g., nurse practitioners and physician assistants), working in the United States and abroad, who are involved in the management of patients with varicose veins of the lower extremities.

Learning Objectives

1. To present the latest clinical practice guidelines for the management of patients with varicose veins, based on systematic review and meta-analysis of the available scientific evidence.
2. To analyze results of percutaneous venous ablation procedures and compare them to those obtained with compression therapy and open surgery for treatment of symptomatic varicose veins.
3. To compare outcomes after concomitant vs staged interventions for the treatment of saphenous incompetence and symptomatic varicose veins.