External support valvuloplasty in the treatment of chronic deep vein incompetence of the legs

Background. To evaluate the benefit from external support valvuloplasty in chronic deep vein incompetence of the legs. Methods. Design: prospective study. Patients: twenty patients 7 primary and 13 secondary (post-thrombotic), with severely symptomatic deep Vein incomp etence (DVI) of the legs. Preoperative duplex sonography, videophlebography with ambulatory venous pressure measurement. Surgical treatment with exter nal support valvuloplasty with Venocuff (Vaso Products Inc., Sommer-ville, NJ, USA). Postoperative clinical follow-up, duplex and pressure measurement s. Results. In primary DVI, symptoms disappeared in all 7 patients, and in sec ondary DVI in 7 of 13 patients. An reconstructions were competent in primar y DVI and in 10 out of 13 in secondary DVI. The follow-up period averaged 1 9 (6-32) months in primary DVI and 18 (5-31) months in secondary DVI patien ts. Conclusions. In severely symptomatic deep vein incompetence of the legs ext ernal support valvuloplasty is effective, especially in primary DVI. In sec ondary DVI the competence of the reconstructions was 78% and the symptoms d isappeared in 52%. This means that external valvuloplasty is indicated even in post-thrombotic patients.