Greater energy delivery improves treatment success of endovenous laser treatment of incompetent saphenous veins.

PURPOSE: Early and midterm results of endovenous laser treatment (EVLT) of the saphenous veins for the treatment of symptomatic insufficiency are promising. However, technical factors contributing to success or failure of saphenous vein EVLT have not been fully investigated. This study was performed to test the hypothesis that treatment success is related to achieving a critical threshold of energy delivery relative to the length of vein treated.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Data regarding length of treated vein and total energy delivered were collected from prospectively acquired databases at two institutions. Ultrasound (US) examinations were obtained for all treated veins. Successful EVLT was defined as US-documented absence of flow in the treated vein. EVLT failure was defined by US evidence of flow at any point in the treated vein segment at any time more than 1 week after the treatment date. A two-tailed Student t test was performed for statistical analysis and the null hypothesis was rejected at a P value less than .05.

RESULTS: One hundred eleven treated veins were followed up with US over 3-78 weeks (mean, 29.5 weeks). During this time, 85 treated veins (77.5%) remained closed. In this group of successfully treated veins, average energy delivered was 63.4 J/cm (range, 20.5-137.8 J/cm). The average energy delivered to the 26 veins (22.5%) in the failure group was 46.6 J/cm (range, 25.7-78 J/cm). This difference in delivered energy was statistically significant (P < .0001). No treatment failures were identified in patients who received doses of 80 J/cm or more.

CONCLUSION: EVLT is an effective method of incompetent saphenous vein treatment. Greater doses of energy delivered are associated with successful EVLT, particularly when doses of more than 80 J/cm are delivered.