[Conservative treatment of varicose veins].

The treatment of varicose veins is supposed to eliminate congestive symptoms and edema, heal skin complications and prevent complications. Surgical procedures, endovenous thermal procedures, endovenous chemical procedures and conservative measures are used for treatment. Often the invasive and conservative procedures are combined. A precise examination of the varicose veins is required for therapy planning; duplex sonography is the gold standard. Conservative therapy focuses on compression therapy with compression bandages and with compression stockings. Medical adaptive compression systems are also used in the decongestion phase. Extract from red vine leafs, extract from horse chestnut seed and oxerutin are available for oral drug therapy. Conservative therapy is especially indicated when treatment of symptomatic varicose veins is not possible or when symptomatic venous disease persists even after invasive therapy.