A clinical study of varicose veins and their management in patients attending the surgical department of a tertiary hospital

Abstract

Varicose veins are abnormally dilated, tortuous and elongated veins that occur in the lower limbs. The patients usually present to the surgical outpatient department with various clinical presentations such as, dilated veins, venous ulcers over the legs, pigmentation of the skin and lipodermatosclerosis to name a few. Venous doppler is a very important investigation that must be done in a cases of varicose veins.The surgical treatment involves sapheno-femoral junction flush ligation with stripping of the varicose vein. Several other modalities are also available today such as, sclerotherapy and endovascular laser ablation (EVLA). The objective of this study was to determine the clinical profile of the patients who presented with vari-cose veins and to determine the treatment that was offered to them to treat the varicose veins. This study was carried out from September 2015 to August 2018. A total of 62 patients were studied. The statistics were analy-sed using SPSS package 20.0. Ethical clearance was obtained from the institutional ethics committee. The presence of dilated veins was the most common complaint with which patients presented to the surgical outpatient department. The most common surgical procedure that was performed was the sapheno-femoral junction flush ligation with stripping of the varicose vein. This study shows the importance of diagno-sing a case of varicose veins and to determine as early as possible the treatment modality that should be offered to the patient.