The Northern Health Vascular Surgery Unit recently hosted their fifth annual Complex Venous Workshop.

Held in late August, the vascular team were pleased to host another successful workshop – this time as a two-day workshop, with two key focuses.

“This year, we were able to focus primarily on two areas. Firstly, we were proud to host a forum for discussion of existing international venous guidelines by eight complex venous surgeons in Australia, and secondly, undertake procedures on four patients,” explained Dr Iman Bayat, Head of Northern Health Vascular Surgery Unit.

“It was great to host interstate experts from Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia, and come together to discuss international venous guidelines, and the relevance to our practise here in Australia – and lay the groundwork for opportunities to develop Australian/NZ guidelines.”

The team were pleased to host Associate Professor Laurencia Villalba, Associate Professor Ramon Varcoe, Dr Shannon Thomas and Dr Phil Puckridge, and are looking forward to hosting other vascular surgeons in the future.

The vascular team also had the pleasure of receiving input from UK vascular surgeon, Professor Stephen Black, who joined virtually to provide input during a complex venous case.

On her collaboration with Northern Health, Associate Professor Laurencia Villalba, said, “I think workshops like this are phenomenal for growth. Interaction with colleagues during live cases and live discussions and the amount we can learn from each other’s experiences is invaluable.”

“Thanks to Dr Bayat and his team who hosted this event. We are not only learning from watching him and his team perform amazing cases and holding discussions, but we are making history. This is a day we are going to remember forever, as it’s the first time a group of individuals are coming together to discuss opportunities for writing guidelines that are going to determine the future in our specialty.”

Iman explained the four patient cases brought focus to chronic venous obstruction in the deep veins, below the groin crease.

“Patients suffering from this condition will often have symptoms of leg swelling, discolouration, varicose veins, and, in severe cases, venous ulcers. This condition is common among patients who have had extensive deep vein thrombosis (DVT), and suffer from post thrombotic syndrome,” Iman explained.

“For some of these patients, we are able to push the capabilities of endovascular treatment to improve their symptoms. However, this is an ongoing journey of development and learning, and such workshops help bring the collective experience together to aid patient care.”

“In some patients, we were able to offer intervention which brought them improvement in symptoms, and provide the necessary investigation and case discussion to plan further management in the future.”

Northern Health is at the forefront of this level of complexity.

“From our first workshop and from our commitment to deep venous disease, Northern Health is well on its way to being the centre of excellence for complex venous pathology in Victoria. We are one of the only Victorian public health services to provide intravascular ultrasound to our patients. We believe this is essential to guide deep venous intervention,” Iman said.

Iman and his team are already looking to next year, in preparation for the Australian NZ Venous Forum, which will be held at Northern Health as a two-day workshop on 1 – 2 June 2023.

The vascular team expressed their appreciation to everyone involved in preparing for and running this year’s workshop.

“It’s needless to say that a workshop with such excellent virtual capability would not have been possible without hard work from a number of different areas, including theatre staff, IT, and the surgical and anaesthetic departments. Special thanks to Bonnie Geeves for much of the planning around the workshop, Dr Shrikkanth Rangarajan for moderating the session, Dr David Goh for being the lead surgeon for a portion of the workshop, and participant surgeons, Dr Damien Holdaway, Dr Kalpa Perera, and Dr Hansoo Lee,” Iman said.

“We would also like to acknowledge and thank our industry sponsors, Medtronic, BD and Boston Scientific, who are leaders in the development of technologies necessary for deep venous work, but also support educational endeavours such as this recent workshop.”