NEW YORK – Guidelines for the management of leg ulcerations will be changed to accommodate the results of the Early Venous Reflux Ablation trial, according to this video interview with the senior author, Alun H Davies, DSc, professor of vascular surgery, Imperial College, London.
In this video interview, conducted at a symposium on vascular and endovascular issues sponsored by the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Dr. Davies recaps the major results of the study, which associated immediate endovascular ablation (early intervention) with significantly faster healing than did compression therapy with ablation, considered only after 6 months (delayed intervention).
These data have been published (N Engl J Med 2018 May 31;378:2105-14), but Dr. Davies focused in this interview on the cost efficacy of early intervention with endovascular ablation. In the United Kingdom, where the study was conducted, the data support the cost efficacy, but Dr. Davies predicted even greater savings in the United States because of the expense of frequent wound care visits.
Based on data from a randomized trial, he expects guidelines, including those in the United States, to be revised to list early endovascular ablation as a 1b or 1A recommendation, thereby establishing this intervention as a standard.
If follow-up after 3 years confirms a lower rate of recurrence, an advantage previously shown for open surgery relative to compression healing, the case for early endovascular intervention will be even stronger, according to Dr. Davies.