The Effect of 0.5% Sodium Tetradecyl Sulfate on a Venous Lake Lesion.
BACKGROUND
A venous lake lesion is a venous ectasia that occurs on the exposed skin of elderly people. Although a number of therapies such as surgical excision, laser therapy, infrared coagulation, cryotherapy and sclerotherapy have been used to treat venous lakes, there is no guideline for treating this lesion.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to determine whether 0.5% sodium tetradecyl sulfate (STS) is effective for the treatment of venous lake lesions.


METHODS
Twelve patients with venous lake lesions were enrolled In this study. After proper antiseptic preparation, 0.5% STS was slowly injected into each subject's lesion, and this was followed by immediate compression for 10 minutes.


RESULTS
After treatment, all of the patients' lesions cleared completely. The average number of treatments was 2.15±1.28. Two patients experienced mild side effects such as light pain and paresthesia, and these soon disappeared. There were no serious side effects reported during treatment. The mean follow up period was 29.58±13.48 months.


CONCLUSIONS
We have demonstrated that sclerotherapy with 0.5% STS was quite effective for treating venous lake lesions, and this treatment caused no serious adverse effects.
Department of Dermatology, College of Medicine, Hallym University, Anyang, Korea.
Suck Joon
SJ
Jung
Department of Dermatology, College of Medicine, Hallym University, Anyang, Korea.
Young Ju
YJ
Seo
Department of Dermatology, College of Medicine, Hallym University, Anyang, Korea.
Eun Ju
EJ
Park
Department of Dermatology, College of Medicine, Hallym University, Anyang, Korea.
Chul Woo
CW
Kim
Department of Dermatology, College of Medicine, Hallym University, Anyang, Korea.
Hee Jin
HJ
Cho
Department of Dermatology, College of Medicine, Hallym University, Anyang, Korea.
Kwang Ho
KH
Kim
Department of Dermatology, College of Medicine, Hallym University, Anyang, Korea.
Kwang Joong
KJ
Kim
Sclerotherapy; Sodium tetradecyl sulfate; Venous lake