ORIGINAL ARTICLES   

International Angiology 2002 March;21(1):93-95

Copyright © 2003 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Acute superficial venous thrombophlebitis: does emergency surgery have a role?

Beatty J., Fitridge R., Benveniste G., Greenstein D.

From the Departments of Vascular Surgery, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Adelaide, Australia and Northwick Park Hospital, London, UK

Back­ground. Super­fi­cial ­venous throm­boph­le­bitis (SVT) of the long saph­e­nous vein (LSV) has been shown to be asso­ciat­ed with throm­bus prop­a­ga­tion into the com­mon femo­ral vein in up to 44% of cases. Con­ser­va­tive man­age­ment can thus ­result in deep vein throm­bo­sis (DVT), deep vein insuf­fi­cien­cy or fatal pul­mo­nary embo­lism (PE). To exam­ine the ­effects of emer­gen­cy divi­sion of the saphe­no-femo­ral junc­tion (SFJ) on the deep ­venous ­system in SVT of the LSV we used pre- and post­op­er­a­tive ­venous ­duplex ultra­sound.
Meth­ods. Emer­gen­cy divi­sion of the SFJ was per­formed in 17 ­patients pre­sent­ing with acute super­fi­cial ­venous throm­boph­le­bitis. All ­patients had ­duplex ultra­sound, which dem­on­strat­ed throm­bus of the above knee long saph­e­nous vein togeth­er with a nor­mal deep ­venous ­system. A fol­low-up ­duplex ultra­sound scan was ­arranged on dis­charge and at 2 ­months.
­Results. No ­patient had prop­a­ga­tion of throm­bus into the deep ­venous ­system or a PE. One ­patient devel­oped a non-occlu­sive clot in the pop­li­teal vein at 2 ­months fol­low-up. All ­patients were dis­charged at 48 hours.
Con­clu­sions. Using ­duplex ultra­sound it has been shown that emer­gen­cy divi­sion of the SFJ is a safe and effec­tive way of pre­vent­ing seri­ous com­pli­ca­tions ­caused by throm­bus in above knee LSV SVT.