European Radiology

Venous malformation sclerotherapy: is stasis the key to pain relief? 🤔

Polidocanol foam sclerotherapy is widely used for symptomatic venous malformations, but predicting which patients will achieve meaningful pain relief remains challenging.

In this retrospective study of 181 patients with painful venous malformations, Wada et al. found that 84% experienced some pain reduction after initial treatment, while 47% achieved at least 50% reduction in pain at 2 months.

Interestingly, the most important predictor was not lesion size, morphology, or polidocanol concentration, but good sclerosant stasis. This highlights the importance of lesion hemodynamics and technical optimization during treatment.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00330-026-12699-x (Shinji Wada et al.)

"Pain is a common indication for sclerotherapy of venous malformation. This stasis-first approach is an interesting strategy and may be key to maximizing pain relief." - Kevin Fung

The authors evaluated the impact of constraining proprietary and open LLMS to structured outputs in processeing radiology request forms (Mohammed Bahaaeldin et al.)

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s41747-026-00712-3