Relation between postphlebitic changes in the deep veins and results of surgical treatment of venous ulcers.

41 patients with venous ulceration, investigated by ascending phlebography, had operations to ligate incompetent calf perforating veins. Recurrent ulceration developed within five years of operation in all 23 patients with evidence of deep-vein damage on the initial phlebograms. Only 1 of the seventeen patients with normal deep veins had a recurrent ulcer during the same period of follow-up. Thus local surgery to the perforating veins in postphlebitic limbs was shown to be ineffective.