Venous Diseases
About Venous Disease: Understanding Superficial Venous Reflux
Your legs are made up of a network of veins. Healthy leg veins contain valves that open and close to assist the return of blood back to the heart. Venous reflux disease develops when the valves that keep blood flowing out of the legs and back to the heart become damaged or diseased. This can cause blood to pool in your legs and lead to symptoms such as pain, swelling, swollen limbs, leg heaviness and fatigue, skin changes and skin ulcers, and varicose veins.
The Closure® procedure
The Venefit™ Closure procedure, an alternative treatment option to traditional vein stripping surgery, brings state-of-the-art technology to an age-old disease.
The Closure procedure is performed on an outpatient basis. Using ultrasound, your physician will position the Closure catheter into the diseased vein, through a small opening in the skin. The tiny catheter delivers radio frequency (RF) energy to the vein wall. As the RF energy is delivered and the catheter is withdrawn, the vein wall is heated, causing the collagen in the wall to shrink and the vein to close. Once the diseased vein is closed, blood is re-routed to other healthy veins.
Following the procedure, a simple bandage is placed over the insertion site, and additional compression may be provided to aid healing. Your doctor may encourage you to walk, and to refrain from extended standing and strenuous activities for a period of time.
Patients who undergo the Closure procedure typically resume normal activities within a day.
The Surgeons at SAS, Surgery and Vein Specialists have performed thousands of these procedures in our Vein Suite.