Journal «Angiology and Vascular Surgery» • 

2015 • VOLUME 21 • №3

Modern approaches to surgical treatment of post-injection vascular complications in intravenous drug addicts

Panfilov S.D.1, Panfilov D.S.2

1) Department of Vascular Surgery, "Municipal Clinical Hospital No 29", Novokuznetsk, Russia
2) Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Research Institute of Cardiology under the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Tomsk, Russia

An ever-growing number of injection drug abusers causes great concern over specific post-injection complications involving major vessels, not uncommonly infected ones. The review is dedicated to the problem of vascular complications in drug abusers, clinical peculiarities of the nosology concerned, as well as a present-day view on diagnosis and policy of surgical treatment of infected false aneurysms in this cohort of patients. Surgical decision-making is based on a series of factors: baseline general condition of the patient, possibility of surgical care depending on the specific situation (scope and level of the infected area, phase of the course of the wound process, degree of ischaemia of the limb, choice of a plastic material), and probability of further injections of narcotic drugs. In treatment of such patients a promising trend includes endovascular and minimally invasive technologies, however assessing the remote results thereof requires accumulation of larger experience.

KEY WORDS: post-injection vascular complications, infected pseudoaneurysm, drug addiction, reconstruction of major vessels.

P. 139

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