ORIGINAL ARTICLES   

International Angiology 1999 September;18(3):233-8

Copyright © 2000 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

External support valvuloplasty in the treatment of chronic deep vein incompetence of the legs

Åkesson H. *, Risberg B. **, Bjorgell O. ***

From the Department of *Vascular and Renal Diseases, Lund University, Malmö University Hospital, ** Vascular Surgery, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg, and *** Radiology, Lund University, Malmö University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden

Background. To eval­u­ate the ben­e­fit from exter­nal sup­port val­vu­lo­plas­ty in chron­ic deep vein incom­pe­tence of the legs.
Methods. Design: Prospective study. Patients: Twenty ­patients 7 pri­mary and 13 sec­on­dary (post-throm­bot­ic), with severe­ly symp­to­mat­ic deep vein incom­pe­tence (DVI) of the legs. Preoperative ­duplex sonog­ra­phy, vid­eoph­le­bog­ra­phy with ambu­la­to­ry ­venous pres­sure meas­ure­ment. Surgical treat­ment with exter­nal sup­port val­vu­lo­plas­ty with Venocuff (Vaso Products Inc., Sommer-ville, NJ, USA). Postoperative clin­i­cal fol­low-up, ­duplex and pres­sure meas­ure­ments.
Results. In pri­mary DVI, symp­toms dis­ap­peared in all 7 ­patients, and in sec­on­dary DVI in 7 of 13 ­patients. All recon­struc­tions were com­pe­tent in pri­mary DVI and in 10 out of 13 in sec­on­dary DVI. The fol­low-up peri­od aver­aged 19 (6-32) ­months in pri­mary DVI and 18 (5-31) ­months in sec­on­dary DVI ­patients.
Conclusions. In severe­ly symp­to­mat­ic deep vein incom­pe­tence of the legs exter­nal sup­port val­vu­lo­plas­ty is effec­tive, espe­cial­ly in pri­mary DVI. In sec­on­dary DVI the com­pe­tence of the recon­struc­tions was 78% and the symp­toms dis­ap­peared in 52%. This means that exter­nal val­vu­lo­plas­ty is indi­cat­ed even in post-throm­bot­ic ­patients.