[Obesity in vascular surgery].

The average weight of the Western population increases year by year. As a consequence there are new surgical challenges concerning changing medical risks, an increase of technical expenditure and economic costs. This development creates problems also for vascular surgery. These concern those patients' co-morbidities. On the other hand for this part of surgery the "obesity paradox" was proved as well. These problems, explanations and clinical results for different fields of vascular surgery as reported in the literature are discussed. Furthermore, we want to contribute to the acceptance of technical alternatives by describing our experiences in avoiding risks in obese patients.