Treatment for vascular disease can be as simple as starting an exercise program and stopping smoking, but when patients need more aggressive care, the Vascular Institute uses some of the most exciting, advanced equipment and procedures available. Vascular surgeons use minimally invasive techniques with smaller incisions and less tissue damage. Through tiny incisions, interventional radiologists use balloons, stents, and medications to repair blood vessel problems. These new technologies have revolutionized the treatment of vascular diseases.

The Institute treats:

• Varicose veins, phlebitis and venous insufficiency
• Carotid artery disease
• Peripheral arterial disease
• Abdominal aortic aneurysms
• Arterial or venous blood clots
• Pulmonary embolism

The Institute takes many treatment approaches to vascular disease, including:

• Anti-coagulant drugs: Medications to prevent blood clots from forming.
• Thrombolysis: Using a clot-busting drug released into the clot itself to open a blocked blood vessel. Once the clot is gone, doctors then can spot its cause and take measures to correct it.
• Balloon angioplasty: In this procedure, physicians threads a catheter into the blood vessel, and then inflate a balloon to open a blocked area. Recovery time is short and most patients can return to their normal activities as soon as they leave the hospital.
• Intravascular stent placement: After angioplasty to open a blood vessel, doctors may place stents, which are thin mesh tubes, in blood vessels to keep them from narrowing again.
• Thrombectomy: This breaks up and removes blood clots using a small device threaded through blood vessels to reach the clots.
• Sclerotherapy: A treatment to shrink varicose veins from the inside by putting scarring agents in a catheter, and maneuvering them to the problem area.
• Laser-assisted repair: A treatment that uses heat generated by a laser to create scar tissue in a varicose vein, sealing it so that it will no longer fill and swell.
• Endovascular repair of aneurysms: Minimally invasive treatment to seal abdominal aortic aneurysms prevent a rupture.
• Embolotherapy: Injection of metallic coils or tiny particles into an abnormal blood vessel to stop bleeding or shrink the vascular supply of a tumor.
• Vena cava filters: Filters placed in major veins to prevent blood clots from entering the lungs in patients who are likely to have recurring clots.

For some, treatment requires special wound healing or rehabilitation therapy.