Conventional versus endovascular surgical procedures: a no choice option.

The on-going debates on the competitiveness of endovascular and conventional surgery in the treatment of peripheral occlusive vascular diseases are justified by the fact that endovascular procedures are associated with a lower mortality and morbidity, require a shorter hospital stay, and are less costly than conventional surgery. However, scientific and economic comparisons between the two techniques are difficult because they cannot strictly be applied to the same patients. Patients who may benefit from endovascular surgery are generally at an earlier stage of the disease, they have claudication and short stenoses or occlusion. On the other hand, patients who present with severe claudication or critical ischaemia, in most cases, have long occlusions, multiple segmental disease and often require conventional surgery.