Team-based approach to deep venous disease: A multidisciplinary approach to the multifaceted problem of thrombotic...

Thrombotic lower extremity venous disease is associated with significant diagnostic and therapeutic complexity. Not only do venous occlusion and upstream venous hypertension lead to symptoms for patients, but their sequelae, including venous reflux, lymphedema, and wound formation, contribute to significant morbidity for patients and are difficult to separate from one another. Therapeutically, much of the complexity in the management of these patients stems from the fact that each individual management strategy may treat some, but not all, of the pathophysiology and associated symptoms. Given the complexity in diagnosing and managing the treatment of these patients, a multidisciplinary, multimodal approach is thus necessary to provide patients optimal and durable symptom relief in most cases. A multidisciplinary team composed of interventional radiologists and/or vascular surgeons, vascular medicine and hematology physicians, wound care providers, pelvic pain specialists, lymphedema therapists, and others, has the power to comprehensively diagnose and treat patients, improve patient access, decrease health care utilization and costs, and afford numerous other benefits to patients with thrombotic lower extremity venous disease.