Vascular surgeons found to ask twice as many closed- versus open-ended questions in patient encounters

Patients reported they mostly felt their provider was adequate in terms of engaging in shared decision-making during asymptomatic vascular consults, according to a qualitative analysis carried out at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Furthermore, vascular surgery compared favorably…
Cuts to Medicare: ‘As vascular disease complexity increases, reimbursement for complex care decreases’

Outgoing Midwestern Vascular Surgical Society (MVSS) President Kellie Brown, MD, has seen fundamental changes to the way vascular surgery is practiced during her 20 years as a surgeon. The advance of endovascular techniques. The arrival of the electronic medical record…
MVSS 2021: Midwestern Vascular unveils 2021–22 leadership changes

The Midwestern Vascular Surgical Society (MVSS) announced a new slate of officers at its 2021 annual meeting held in Chicago from Sept. 9–11. Raghu Motaganahalli, MD, officially assumed the reins as MVSS president for 2021–22, taking over from Kellie Brown,…
Why donate to the SVS PAC?

A few years ago, in his presidential address to the Midwestern Vascular Surgical Society (MVSS), Mark Mattos, MD, spoke eloquently about the need to “protect our specialty.” A large part of this, he argued, is protecting our patients; no other…
WIfI score found to be accurate across racial groups

The wound, ischemia and foot infection (WIfI) score is as accurate a predictor of risk for limb loss in Black people as it is among whites, an SVS Foundation-supported study found. The research on patients with chronic limb-threatening ischemia (CLTI)…
Revascularization ‘improves’ walking performance in claudicating PAD patients

Revascularization of the lower extremity improves hemodynamics, walking performance, quality of life and calf-muscle pathology in claudicating patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD), researchers in Nebraska found. Furthermore, baseline systolic pressure in the foot, at 15 seconds after relief of…
Frailty still strongly linked to mortality after EVAR for AAA

An analysis of the Vascular Quality Initiative (VQI) endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) registry for elective abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) revealed that frailty continues to be highly correlated with mortality after the procedure among those aged 80 and over. Researchers from…
Active stent-graft fixation below the renal arteries may have the least effect on aortic neck degeneration, study finds

Stent grafts with active fixation below the renal arteries as well as oversizing by less than 10% seem to have the least effect on aortic neck degeneration over time, according to a research team who conducted a retrospective review of…
Study finds low mortality, high complication rates after aortic endograft explantation

The explantation of aortic endografts—associated with high postoperative morbidity, particularly in patients with infected grafts—can be carried out with a low mortality rate, a new single-center study reveals. Mohammad Khasawneh, MD, a vascular surgery fellow at the Mayo Clinic in…
New data support televascular visits to help address rural vascular surgery shortage

Researchers from the University of Minnesota unveiled new data supporting televascular consultations as a viable solution to the shortage of vascular surgeons in rural parts of the United States during the Midwestern Vascular Surgical Society (MVSS) annual meeting held virtually…

