Prospective randomized controlled trial: conventional versus powered phlebectomy.

Objectives: Transilluminated powered phlebectomy (TriVex) is a new surgical technique that uses tumescent dissection, transillumination, and powered phlebectomy. The purpose of this study was to compare TriVex with conventional varicose vein surgery in terms of pain, cosmesis, recurrence, complications, and operating time.

Methods: One hundred eighty-eight limbs in 141 patients (33 men, 108 women; mean age, 42.

Endovascular approach to abdominal aortic aneurysms limits the postoperative systemic immune response.

Objectives: endovascular repair of abdominal aortic aneurysms (E-AAA) has in recent years developed as an alternative to the conventional open repair (C-AAA). Adverse outcomes following the open approach may relate to immune cell activation and the systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) and organ failure but the benefits in this respect of the endovascular approach are unclear. This study evaluated this question and focused on T-cell activation and function.

Tibial and peroneal artery bypasses using polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) with an interposition vein cuff.

Unlabelled: The combined results of femoro-distal bypasses using prosthetic material with vein cuffs from two separate vascular units is presented.

Method: Over the last five years, 89 infrainguinal bypasses using polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) with a distal interposition vein cuff to a tibial artery have been performed in two centres. All operations were for critical limb ischaemia.

Contralateral stenosis and stump pressures: parameters to identify the high risk patient undergoing carotid endarterectomy under local anaesthesia.

Carotid endarterectomy (CEA) under local anaesthesia (LA) enables the assessment of the two parameters of stump pressure and contralateral stenosis as predictors of neurological complications both intra- and postoperatively. Over a 7 year period, 175 carotid endarterectomies were performed under LA and of these, stump pressure measurements and angiographic findings were recorded on 99 patients. There were no deaths, two patients (2.

New approaches in the medical management of venous ulceration.

This literature survey of the medical treatment of venous ulcers of the lower extremities discusses five classes of agents: (1) fibrinolytics, (2) hydroxyrutosides, (3) prostaglandins, (4) methylxanthines, and (5) others. The authors conclude that all these agents require further research.