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Professor Mark Whiteley
Mark Whiteley
What is the relationship between pelvic vein reflux and varicose veins on legs?
Professor Mark Whiteley explains that one in five women who have leg varicose veins have pelvic vein reflux causing those veins, and one in 30 men have the same.
Transcript
So the relationship between leg varicose veins and pelvic vein reflux is that 20%, so one in five women who have leg varicose veins, have got pelvic vein reflux causing those veins, as a major cause of it. And one in 30 men have got the same. And the big problem is, is most doctors who do their own scans don't diagnose it and don't offer treatment. And so those patients, if they don't have the pelvic veins treated at the same time as the leg varicose veins, will get their leg varicose veins back. And it's one of the major causes why people have this erroneous idea that leg varicose veins will always come back after treatment. It's just that doctors aren't recognising all the causes and not treating them all.