Complications Associated with Foam Sclerotherapy in the Treatment of Telangiectatic and Varicous Veins

Our object is describing the complications of foam sclerotherapy in the treatment of telangiectatic veins and varicose veins in individuals with chronic venous disorders. Chronic Venous Disease involves morphofunctional abnormalities of the venous system, whose clinical manifestations derive from the dysfunction of this system due to valve incompetence and/or obstruction of venous flow, secondary to venous hypertension. It is a serious problem, with a great socioeconomic impact on the lives of patients and on the health system worldwide. The use of foam sclerotherapy for the treatment of varicose veins has increased in Brazil. Although it is a safe, easy-to-perform and low-cost method, it presents complications from local to systemic. The study describes the complications of foam sclerotherapy in the treatment of telangiectatic veins and varicose veins in patients with chronic venous disease. This is a bibliographical, exploratory, descriptive, and cross-sectional research, with a search in the PubMed, BVS and Scielo databases in the last 5 years with the keywords "chronic venous disease", "varicose veins", "telangectatic veins", “foam sclerotherapy”, “complications” and their English language equivalents. The search strategy yielded 1,512 articles; 54 publications were considered after applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, with subsequent reading of the abstracts. Among these, 9 articles were selected. These articles analyzed a total of 1,001 individuals, 91.7% women and 8.3% men, according to the prevalence of the disease between genders. Still, 55.56% of the articles described polidocanol concentrations ranging from 0.25% to 3%, like the recommendations used in sclerotherapy treatment. The complication with the highest incidence was hyperpigmentation of the skin, found in 10.58% of the study participants, and in 2.96% there were no adverse events. When performed correctly, foam sclerotherapy has a low incidence of complications, most of which are benign. As demonstrated in this work, the most frequent complications promote aesthetic impairment, while the important complications are rare and transitory. Thus, it is important that both the doctor and the patient are aware of the risks and benefits of the procedure before deciding on its performance.