[Clinical characteristics of pain in chronic venous insufficiency]

Since the report of the 1st International Conference of Phlebology at Chambéry, devoted to venous pain, the subject has scarcely attracted attention apart from the meeting of the Benelux Society of Phlebology devoted to "pain in the legs". Pain due to superficial venous insufficiency has scarcely changed in nature for 30 years and remains one of the major presenting symptoms in phlebology. Acute or chronic, punctate or diffuse, modifications in this functional symptomatology have been accentuated, or have varied in their aspects under the influence of certain fashions or certain habits of modern life, i.e.: sedentary behaviour, underfloor heating, the use of oral contraceptives or of menopausal hormone replacement therapy. However, the distribution of the various aspects of venous pain remains in the same proportions as those described by the authors cited previously. While the etiological diagnosis must essentially eliminate all other causes: arterial, neurological, muscular, articular, it is essential not to neglect deep venous insufficiency of the gemellar veins, often responsible for a wide range of symptomatology and still all too often neglected. The pathogenesis of this pain not only involves the concept of pain receptors but also the appearance of algogenic metabolites at the site of the microcirculatory unit, to which endothelial cells are particularly sensitive during stasis. In fact, pain is the expression of disorders concerning local exchanges, whether thermal, pressure, metabolic or hemorheological. It is the alarm bell of venous insufficiency and merits the attention of the phebologist who must thus undertake active treatment before problems become irreversible.