Recent developments in vascular surgery

Introduction

Vascular surgery has come of age over the past two decades. The specialty has increasingly separated from general surgery as evidence accrues that outcomes for patients are better when arterialoperations are done by a specialist.1 In the United Kingdom,this has meant an increasing number of consultant posts for purely vascular surgery being advertised. As a result of the expanding ageing population and historical under-provision of vascular intervention in the United Kingdom, vascular workload is expected to rise and the need for specialistswill grow.2

Recognition of the multisystem nature of vascular disease has increased integration of vascularsurgery into multidisciplinary teams of allied specialties. Surgical decisions are now often made jointly with the input of the renal physician, diabetologist, radiologist, cardiologist, neurologist, and specialist nurse. As a result, the role of the vascular surgeon as a sole player within hospital medicine is changing.

Sources and selection criteria

To identify emerging trends in vascular surgery, we searched Medline and the Cochrane database and discussed developments with surgical colleagues. We also reviewed published abstracts of presentations from the Vascular Surgical Society of Great Britain and Ireland, the European Society of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, and the Society for Vascular Surgery (USA) in the past two years.

Abdominal aortic aneurysm