CRC ENDOVASC SKILL PDF

Preface

A lot has happened since the mid-1990s when work began on the Q rst edition of this book. Endovascular skills have become essential for the vascular clinician: these skills are required for the majority of revascularization procedures that are currently being performed. Devices and the technology that drives them have continued to evolve, mostly to the beneQ t of patients. In its infancy, endovascular therapy was best saved for patients with severe medical comorbidities who could not have the more durable open surgical option or for patients with less severe forms of vascular disease, such as focal iliac artery stenosis. The Qeld has matured and endovascular techniques are competitive with, and for many patients better than, traditional open vascular surgical approaches. Miniaturization of the tools, new techniques, better durability, and new ideas for endovascular therapy will continue to be developed beyond the careers of anyone practicing today. The severity of arterial and venous disease that can be treated using endovascular skills will continue to increase. The last major vascular bed to experience the eRects of the endovascular revolution, the cerebrovasculature, may be the most important one, since carotid endarterectomy is the most common vascular index procedure performed and the one for which the best level 1 evidence exists. Open vascular surgery is not obsolete. However, it is required as the Q rst-line treatment in only a minority of patients and will continue to diminish in importance as an option.

Endovascular therapy is the most exciting development in the treatment of vascular disease in a generation. When vascular doctors embrace endovascular concepts, it liberates the way we think. Within this book are described the skills that assist the clinician in that process.