Study of post operative outcome of varicose vein surgery

Varicose veins are dilated and tortuous veins, which affect a significant proportion of adults. They cause physical and emotional symptoms, and affect quality of life in sufferers. More than 5% of the population have varicose vein, and 1% have or had venous ulceration. Varicose vein causes substantial morbidity, cosmetic, monetary loss and psychological effect. OBJECTIVES: 1. To study the post operative outcome of patients who undergone varicose vein surgery-towards symptom, signs of patients after a prescribed period. 2. To evaluate quality of life of patients undergone varicose vein surgery. 3. To evaluate incidence of post operative complications of varicose vein surgery and recurrence. METHOD: The study carried out with the follow-up information relating to 53 patients who were undergone varicose vein surgery. The patients were followed in the post operative period for the expected complications. All the patients were subjected to duplex scan in the follow-up period ranging from 3 months to 1 year. A questionnaire was prepared to collect precise information regarding the life style and symptomatic improvement of the patients. The post operative follow-up and questionnaire data was analysed. RESULTS: It is observed that, out of 53 patients, 6 patients (11.25%) had mild wound infection which did not require any additional treatment. There was no incidence of deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism. No patients experienced neurological deficit or paraesthesia in the post operative period. No patients experienced bleeding from wound. After surgery 34 patients felt leg pain cured, 24 patients felt cosmetic improvement and 7 patients had ulcer completely cured. Overall quality of life was improved in 42 patients after surgery. CONCLUSION: Patients with complications of varicose vein combined with valvular incompetence underwent surgery like saphenofemoral junction flush ligation, with/without stripping; with/without perforator ligation have had improvement in their cosmetic appearance, cure in leg pain, leg ulcer cured, improvement in life style, improvement in ability to do work as well as recurrence of varicose vein was not seen. The study period was short, so the patients need long term follow-up to find out recurrence