In recent decades; many diseases have increased in prevalence as Diabetes and high blood pressure, the smoking incidence has increased especially in the younger population and unhealthy eating habits are becoming the norm. All of these and other factors have helped in increasing the incidence of arterial diseases and also caused a change in the age group suffering from them. We are seeing more younger patients in our vascular clinic complaining of arterial diseases involving all the blood vessels.
One of the most common questions I get in my practice as a vascular surgeon from the patients is which is better open surgical treatment or endovascular stent placement?
Choosing the best option for a patient depends on so many factors including; age, the artery involved, the length of the narrowing, presence of other diseases. In general in younger patients, we recommend surgical treatment over the endovascular procedure.
Surgical procedures for arterial diseases in general have a longer life and less intervention than endovascular procedures. In vascular surgery, we evaluate the outcome of the procedure according to how long the stent or bypass stays open. Most of the time, the surgical outcome is better than the outcome of the endovascular procedures. That’s why in younger patients we want to choose the procedure that offers the patient the longest time to stay open without doing more frequent procedures.
Always ask your doctor about which procedure is best for you and discuss the outcome and risks of each procedure.