What happens during laser vein surgery (EVLA)?

12-05-2017

When you have varicose veins and they cause problems, often only surgery can help. The most advanced techniques use laser to destroy the walls of the veins which is a minimally invasive method. This is called EndoVenous Laser Ablation (EVLA).

At Medicover Hospital we also prefer this kind of surgery over the other ones because it comes with smaller risk and heals faster.

However when most of us hear the abbreviation laser vein surgery (EVLA) we don’t necessarily know what actually this is. So now we summarize the essence of this surgery.

Preparations

During the roughly 30-60 minutes of the surgery you either lay on your back or your stomach, depending on which are is being treated. Before any incision is made, your doctor examines the area again with an ultrasound and marks the affected areas with a black marker.

Since you come into surgery with thorough examinations beforehand (bloodwork, ECG etc.) your anesthesiologist has a good understanding about which method of anesthesia could be executed in your case. This will either be general, spinal or local anesthesia. In all cases, we make sure you don’t feel any pain or inconvenience during and after surgery.

The surgery

After you received the needed anesthetics the vascular surgeon needs to enter your vein. To do this they insert a needle into your skin and through that a laser fiber is introduced into the varicose vein.

With the laser they heat the area at high temperature for about 5 minutes. During this time the whole staff wears laser safety glasses to prevent any damage. Unlike conventional surgeries (stripping) here they don’t remove the problematic vein, but they burn the walls of the vein. This dead tissue then gets reabsorbed by the body naturally.

You won’t feel any pain, you only can smell or taste a burning feeling. After the surgery they remove the laser cable and cover the area with bandage. Only after a short observation you can leave and recover at your own home.

Advantages of EVLA

• Fast, routine procedure which can be done as an outpatient surgery: it only last for about 30 minutes!
• It can be done under local anesthesia, sparing you the side effects of general anesthesia
• There are no cuts and stiches
• You won’t feel any pain
• The side effects are basically non-existent
• Besides all of this, this surgery carries only very small risks