Vascular Surgery in Japan: 2012 Annual Report by the Japanese Society for Vascular Surgery

Abstract

Objectives: This is an annual report indicating the number and early clinical results of annual vascular treatments performed by vascular surgeons in Japan in 2012, as analyzed by database management committee (DBC) members of the JSVS. Materials and Methods: To survey the current status of vascular treatments performed by vascular surgeons in Japan, the DBC members of the JSVS analyzed the vascular treatment data provided by the NCD vascular surgery data analysis team, including the number of treatments and early clinical results such as operative and in-hospital mortality. Results: In total 95,979 vascular treatments were registered by 1,043 institutions in 2012. This database is composed of 7 fields including treatment of aneurysms, chronic arterial occlusive disease, acute arterial occlusive disease, vascular injury, complication of previous vascular reconstruction, venous diseases, and other vascular treatments. The number of vascular treatments in each field was 19,600, 13,141, 4,600, 1,623, 1,973, 30,725, and 24,332, respectively. In the field of aneurysm treatment, 15,745 cases with abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) including common iliac aneurysms were registered, and 47.6% were treated by stent graft. Among AAA cases, 1,704 (10.8%) cases were registered as ruptured AAA. The operative mortality of ruptured and non-ruptured AAA was 17.8%, and 0.8%, respectively. Regarding chronic arterial occlusive disease, open repair was performed in 7,859 cases, including 1,173 distal bypasses to the crural or pedal artery, whereas endovascular procedures were performed in 5,282 cases. Venous treatment including 30,088 cases with varicose vein treatments and 395 cases with lower limb deep venous thrombosis were registered. Regarding other vascular operations, 22,654 cases of vascular access operations and 1,390 amputation surgeries were included. The number of lower limb amputations was still increasing and the mortality rate of amputation surgery was also still high; both of these issues require improvement. Conclusions: The number of vascular treatments increased since 2011, and the proportion of endovascular procedures increased in almost all fields of vascular diseases, especially endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) for aneurysms and endovenous laser ablation (EVLA) for varicose veins.