Venous Interventions

Any overview of the treatment of venous disease should begin with a brief examination of its history. The first documented record of the treatment of venous disease comes to us from the writing on the treatment of varicose veins found in the Ebers papyrus circa 1500 BC. In the 2 millennia since the first description of vascular ligation from the Alexandrian School of Medicine in Egypt, circa 270 BC, knowledge of venous disease has seen steady advancement carried forward by the work of Leonardo DaVinci, William Harvey, Virchow, and Trendelenburg. From the first rudimentary attempts at venous thrombectomy in the early 1920s to the evolution of percutaneous and mechanical thrombectomy and endovascular stents in the 21st century to treat complex venous disease, there also exists a shared evolutionary pathway between knowledge of the disease and its treatment. It is the aim of this review to provide a comprehensive summary of the state of the art of venous disease treatment at the turn of the new century.