Chronic venous insufficiency: clinical assessment and patient selection.

Chronic venous insufficiency is a complex condition, with widely varied clinical manifestations, etiologies, and underlying pathophysiology. An orderly workup is mandatory to assess the nature of a patient's underlying venous disease. This begins in the office setting with a careful medical history, physical examination, and bedside diagnostic tests. These are augmented by confirmatory diagnostic testing, including duplex ultrasonography, venography, plethysmography, and ambulatory venous pressure measurement. Based upon the results of these examinations, the patient's venous disease can be classified according to standardized classification schemes, which in turn leads to the selection of an appropriate treatment strategy. This article outlines the steps in the clinical assessment and classification of patients with chronic venous insufficiency.