Venous ablation therapy: indications and outcomes

Venous disease has long been recognized as a progressive, debilitating, and recurrent problem. Until recently, venous insufficiency was often undertreated due to a lack of therapeutic modalities. During the past decade, an explosion in the treatment options has occurred. Endovenous ablation therapy has nearly replaced the conventional surgical treatments for patients with superficial venous insufficiency. Dramatic changes in therapy are also available for deep venous thrombosis but are not the subject of this review. These newer techniques are much less invasive and consequently have reduced risks of wound complications or bleeding. In addition, they can be performed easily in the office setting with local anesthesia. Higher-risk patients can now be considered for these less invasive treatments to reduce their ambulatory venous hypertension. With the lower procedural risks and the dramatically shortened recovery times, earlier intervention can be entertained. This helps prevent the development of venous stasis ulceration and other sequelae of progressive venous insufficiency.