title: Is there a continuing role for traditional surgery?
abstract: Despite recent NICE guidance there remains a definite role for surgery in the management of varicose veins. A lot of the available evidence that has driven the transformation of care towards endovenous treatments is of good quality yet published by enthusiasts. No endovenous studies have reported long term results as far out from intervention as the open studies, yet in the meta-analysis from Murad et al, the authors suggested from their results that when surgery was compared with all endoluminal ablation therapies, surgery was associated with a non-significant reduction in the risk of varicose vein recurrence (RR0.63; 95%CI 0.37--1.07). Much of the longer-term data on recurrence following open surgery for primary varicose veins dates back well over 15 years ago. This is prior to the inclusion of routine duplex assessment and sub-specialty designation. The recent Cochrane review (13 randomised controlled studies, 3081 patients). The overall conclusion was that UGFS, EVLT and RFA were at least as effective as surgery in the treatment of the LSV. This meta-analysis did not include the CLASS (Comparison of LAser, Surgery and foam Sclerotherapy as a treatment for varicose veins) trial in which measures of clinical success were similar among the groups. Only 48% of the patients screened were eligible for the CLASS study and of these, only 24% of the eligible patients agreed to take part in the study. Similarly in the study by Carradice out of a total of 772 patients assessed for suitability, 442 did not meet the inclusion criteria. There is no doubt that endovenous surgery will increasingly become first line treatment for patients with symptomatic superficial venous reflux specifically in patients with SSV reflux. However, given the device related limitations with endothermal techniques specifically with regard to adverse anatomical features allied to the poorer results of UGFS within the treatment of LSV reflux, there is without doubt still a role for more traditional open surgical techniques that can be delivered with good short and long term outcomes and still being delivered in a cost effective manner.
authors.affiliation: Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge, UK.
authors.forename: Patrick A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Coughlin
authors.affiliation: Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, St James's University Hospital, Leeds, UK david.berridge@nhs.net.
authors.forename: David C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Berridge
mesh_terms: D017115:Catheter Ablation / Q000379:methods; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D019723:Endoscopes; D004724:Endoscopy; D006801:Humans; D053685:Laser Therapy / Q000379:methods; D012008:Recurrence; D012501:Saphenous Vein / Q000601:surgery*; D015911:Sclerotherapy / Q000379:methods; D014648:Varicose Veins / Q000601:surgery* / Q000628:therapy; D014656:Vascular Surgical Procedures / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods*
keywords: Endovenous ablation; varicose vein surgery