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Vascular Surgical Specialty Leads Matt Bown, Dan Carradice, George Smith
Hi, Thanks for this and I am really pleased that you found it useful. This video will be available indefinately for free access on our RU-vid channel. Please ensure that you subscribe and receive notifications, we have loads of great content coming up so please do share with friends and colleagues as well.
Hi, thank you for watching the video and really glad you enjoyed it. Thank you also for your comment. The evidence for compression therapy in varicose veins is a little unclear. The NIHR REACTIV trial compared compression with open surgical stripping and founf the latter to be significantly more effective at improving quality of life and that open surgery was cost-effective in comparison to compression alone. Emerging evidence is now starting to show that modern keyhole treatments are even more effective than open surgery. When NICE reviewed the entire literature they found that there was insufficient evidence to support compression as a treatment and advised against its use unless interventional treatment such as keyhole or traditional open surgery is not appropriate. As a result they recommended that compression hosiery was not to be offered in a patient suitable for intervention. In their recommendations for research they promoted more research towards understanding the place of compression therapy, which was a key theme also identified during the recent James Lind Alliance patient and clinician research prioritisation exercise which we performed. As a result research into compression is a key theme (work stream 3) of the Venous Research Special Interest group (SIG) of the Vascular Societies of Great Britian and Ireland. Compression therapy does of course have a secondary benefit in the management of venous disease, especially in advanced disease such as ulceration, but it is a longstanding mistake to think that it is effective or cost-effective in comparison with modern treatment where this is appropriate. If you would like to hear more about our research or contribute toward the work of the SIG or Vascular Research UK then please contact us on vascular.research.uk@gmail.com.
