Foam Sclerotherapy Varicose Vein Treatment

Varicose vein treatments
Depending on your consultation results, Dr Omar will recommend one of the following treatments, or a combination of these treatments to achieve the best results:- High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU)
- Endovenous Microwave Ablation of the veins (EMWA)
- Endovenous Laser Ablation of the veins (EVLA)
- Transluminal Occlusion Of the Perforators (TRLOP)
- Micro-phlebectomy
- Ultrasound-Guided Foam Sclerotherapy and microsclerotherapy
What is foam sclerotherapy?
The ‘foam’ part of foam sclerotherapy treatment involves creating a harmless foam that is injected into the varicose vein using ultrasound imaging to guide the injection to the right position. The foam is made by combining the sclerosant agent (a medicine that kills the vein) with Oxygen and Carbon-Dioxide, which is then injected into the varicose vein. The foam mixture is a safe and effective treatment because the bubbles in the foam dissolve quickly and help your body to break down and absorb the vein.How foam sclerotherapy works
After the larger varicose veins are treated, they will no longer be able to supply smaller varicose veins with blood. Using foam sclerotherapy to destroy the unwanted vein works well with your own biological processes. The foam will cause the cells in the walls of the vein to die off. This causes inflammation in the area to which your body responds by breaking down and reabsorbing the dead vein over time until it disappears. Whenever any type of medicine is injected into a vein, the solution will be immediately diluted down by the blood, which will reduce its efficacy. However, injecting the foam into a varicose vein will push the pooled blood out of the way to completely fill up the vein. This means that the foam is not diluted by the blood and can get to work right away destroying the cell walls of the varicose vein. There is no need to worry that the foam will move outside of the varicose vein being treated because should any of the foam solution reach large, active veins, it will mix with the blood and become inactive.Minimally invasive treatment
The treatment is minimally invasive, which means for the patient it is much more comfortable to undertake and quicker to recover from than old-fashioned varicose vein treatments such as vein stripping, which is a full-scale surgical procedure with a long recovery time and extremely high recurrence rate. Patients undergoing foam sclerotherapy can avoid the need for general anaesthetic, open incisions into the legs and the need for a hospital operating theatre to undertake treatment. This newer treatment has fast become the go-to choice for achieving long term cure for varicose veins. Even the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) recommends the use of treatments such as foam sclerotherapy over traditional surgery because of its minimally invasive technique and a better outcome for the patient.