Cuban Medical Advances Foam Sclerotherapy

Since humans adopted an upright position for walking they have suffered varicose veins in the lower limbs, one of the world's most frequent maladies - affecting approximately 25% of the world population -2 ½ million of Cuba's 11 million inhabitants. It's important to know that the eradication of varicose veins eliminates one of the main causes of death on the planet.

Thus did Dr. Antonio Suarez Cabrera, head of the Freyre de Andrade Surgical Teaching Hospital's Angiology and Vascular Surgery Department, begin the interesting conversation about sclerotherapy, the injection of a chemical irritant into a vein to sclerose (harden) it.

"Until a short time ago, treatment of varicose veins in the lower extremities was a choice between surgery and sclerotherapy; with the first used for complicated and large varicose veins, while the second was mainly reserved for small-calibre veins or as a complement to surgery. However, problems of toxicity and dosage prevented using sclerotherapy for large veins.

"In Cuba the new procedure using a foam variant stemmed from the 2006 XII Pan-American Phlebology and Lymphology Congress, when Mexican scientists, led by Prof. Valente Guerrero Gonzalez and collaborators, expounded on their experiences for their Cuban colleagues."