Venous ulcers: new options in treatment: minimally invasive vein surgery

Protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis of interventions for pathologic perforator veins in chronic venous disease

INTRODUCTION

Perforator veins (PVs) play an important role in the development of chronic venous insufficiency and ulceration. Procedures to eliminate incompetence and reflux in PV may include open surgery, subfascial endoscopic surgery, intravenous ablation techniques and sclerotherapy. With the aim of filling the evidence gap, this is a protocol for a systematic review that will assess the effects of any form of intervention for the treatment of pathologic PVs of the lower limbs in patients with chronic venous disease.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

Systematic searches will be carried out in MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane CENTRAL, IBECS and LILACS databases at a minimum without date or language restrictions for relevant randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and quasi-RCTs (trials in which the method of allocation is not truly random). In addition, a search will also be carried out in the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform, in the clinical trial registries of ClinicalTrials.gov and in the grey literature source OpenGrey.eu. The RCT and quasi-RCT comparison techniques isolated or in combination for treating PVs will be considered. Three review authors will independently perform data extraction and quality assessments of data from included studies, and any disagreements will be resolved by discussion. The primary outcomes will be wound healing and pain. Secondary outcomes will include oedema, adverse events, recurrence or recanalisation, quality of life and economic aspects. The Cochrane handbook will be used for guidance. If the results are not appropriate for a meta-analysis in RevManV.5 software (eg, if the data have considerable heterogeneity and are drawn from different comparisons), a descriptive analysis will be performed.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

Ethics committee approval is not necessary. We intend to update the public registry used in this review, report any important protocol amendments and publish the results in a widely accessible journal.

PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER

CRD42018092974.

Venous intervention in chronic venous ulcer treatment and recurrence avoidance

In this brief overview I will progress from superficial venous intervention for venous leg ulcers (VLU) to perforator intervention and finally to deep venous intervention. But first there are a number of concepts that must be accepted. We know that 70 % of patients with leg ulcers have a venous component (1), and in at least 40 % of those patients, ulcers will be caused by superficial venous insufficiency alone or in combination with perforator incompetence (2). Such patients will likely benefit from treatment of their superficial venous disease.

One of the most important but often overlooked factors in venous ulcers is calf pump failure. Simka has reported that 45 % of patients with venous ulcers have calf pump failure (3).

Thorough duplex evaluation of the venous leg ulcer patient is paramount for accurate diagnosis, the differentiation between arterial and venous components (purely arterial, venous, or mixed etiology), and the obstructive and/or incompetent nature and location of venous lesions. In obstructive venous lesions the degree of obstruction as well as how proximal the lesion extends must be known. For venous insufficiency the location (deep and/or superficial venous system) and the extent (segmental or axial) will help determine how much the incompetence contributes to the overall ulcer condition, and what lesions can be safely treated.