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Clinical and hemodynamic significance of corona phlebectatica in chronic venous disorders
Jean-François Uhl1, André Cornu-Thénard, Patrick H Carpentier
1Varicose Vein Surgical Center, Neuilly sur Seine, France. jf.uhl@wanadoo.fr
Insights
Corona phlebectatica, a sign of chronic venous disorders, correlates with disease severity and hemodynamic issues. Including it in the CEAP classification may improve its reliability for grading venous conditions.
Area of Science:
- Vascular Medicine
- Dermatology
- Medical Diagnostics
Background:
- Corona phlebectatica (corona) is a clinical sign linked to chronic venous disorders.
- It is not currently part of the established CEAP classification system.
- This study aimed to assess corona's clinical and hemodynamic correlations for its classification potential.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze the clinical and hemodynamic correlations of corona phlebectatica.
- To determine the significance and potential usefulness of corona in classification grading systems.
- To evaluate corona's role in refining the CEAP classification.
Main Methods:
- Collected clinical and duplex ultrasound data from 287 patients across 10 European countries.
- Defined corona as fan-shaped intradermal telangiectases and graded its severity (light, moderate, severe).
- Utilized standardized software to enhance interobserver consistency in data collection.
Main Results:
- Corona was detected in 27.7% of patients, with varying severity grades.
- Corona presence and severity significantly correlated with chronic venous disorder risk factors, symptoms, and CEAP clinical classes (C1-C6).
- Corona was associated with increased CEAP scores, disability, anatomical scores, and incompetent perforators, suggesting a link to disease severity.
Conclusions:
- Corona phlebectatica demonstrates a strong correlation with clinical severity and hemodynamic disturbances in chronic venous disorders.
- Incorporating corona into the C3 class of the CEAP classification could potentially enhance the reliability of the system.
- This suggests corona is a valuable indicator for assessing and classifying venous disease.
Background:
Corona phlebectatica (corona) is a clinical sign associated with chronic venous disorders but is not yet included in the CEAP classification. Our aim was to analyze the clinical and hemodynamic correlations of corona to determine its significance and potential usefulness in classification grading and systems such as the CEAP classification.
Methods:
A full clinical and duplex ultrasound record of 287 patients was collected by 60 vascular physicians from 10 European countries. They used the same computer software. This was designed to improve the interobserver consistency of computer-assisted procedures for clinical data gathering. Corona was defined as fan-shaped intradermal telangiectases in the medial and sometimes lateral portions of the ankle and foot. This definition was further refined into three severity grades of light, moderate, and severe, according to reference pictures provided by the software. To avoid overpowering the statistical tests, only data from right lower limbs were analyzed.
Results:
In this series of 287 unselected patients, a corona was detected in 96 right lower limbs (27.7%) and graded as light in 61 (21.1%), moderate in 24 (8.3%), and severe in 11 (3.8%). The presence of a corona and its severity grade were found significantly related to two risk factors of chronic venous disorders (age and personal history of deep vein thrombosis), the presence of so-called venous symptoms, including pain, pruritus, burning sensation, feeling of swelling, cramps, heavy legs; and most individual items of CEAP clinical classes (varicose veins, edema, all skin changes, C5; and open ulcers, C6). Furthermore, among the patients without skin changes (classes C1 to C3), the presence and grade of corona appeared to be significantly associated with the severity of the disease, with increasing CEAP (P < .05), disability (P < .03), and anatomic (P < .01) scores. The presence of a corona and its severity grade were also found significantly related to the CEAP clinical classes themselves (P < .001), the CEAP disability (P < .001) and clinical severity scores (P < .001), and the presence of superficial reflux in the saphenous and nonsaphenous territories (P = .05) and in the perforators (P < .001). The presence of a deep venous reflux was not found to be significant in this series. The relative risk of finding incompetent leg or calf perforators by duplex ultrasound is 4.4 times greater in patients with corona (P < .001). A comparison between the CEAP classification without corona and a modified classification including corona in C3 shows a better reliability coefficient of Cronbach.
Conclusion:
Corona strongly correlates with the clinical severity and hemodynamic disturbances of the disease. The inclusion of corona in the C3 class should probably improve the reliability of the CEAP clinical classes.
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