Iliofemoral Thrombectomy For Venous Occlusion

Introduction  VENOUS thrombectomy, employed by Leriche over 35 years ago,² was performed infrequently in this country until Mahorner emphasized its value in 1957.⁵ DeWeese,¹ Haler,⁴ and others have more recently reported their experience with this procedure. We have reviewed our experience with this procedure during the past 6½ years to emphasize certain factors in management which have not been sufficiently stressed or which may vary from the practice in other clinics.

Material  Iliofemoral thrombectomy was carried out in 48 patients; one reoperation was performed after two months, making a total of 49 procedures. Twenty-seven operations were done on the left side; there were no simultaneous bilateral procedures. Thirty-one patients were male, reflecting the contribution of a predominantly male Veterans Administration Hospital service. Their age averaged 54 years in contrast to the female of 43 years. The entire group averaged 50 years with extremes of 10 months