Treatment of Arterial and Venous Disease

The minimally invasive catheter based image guided techniques are utilized daily to treat patients with venous diseases such as deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, central venous stenosis (especially in dialysis patients) and more.

Similary patients with arterial disease including vascular malformations can be managed using minimally invasive techniques. Open surgery is avoided, general anesthesia is unnecessary and hospital stay is minimized.

Example:

A 43 year old patient with shortness of breath and a cough went for a chest x ray. This revealed an aretrio-venous malformation (AVM) in the lung which had a single feeding artery measuring 4mm in diameter (figure 1). Due to the risk of stroke the malformation was embolized using a detachable plug (figure 2). The patient was admitted for 23 hours and was discharged uneventfully. After follow up of more than 1 year the AVM remains closed off.