Vascular Surgery in Japan: 2015 Annual Report by the Japanese Society for Vascular Surgery

Objectives: This is an annual report indicating the number and early clinical results of annual vascular treatment performed by vascular surgeon in Japan in 2015, 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 National Clinical Database (NCD), including the number of treatments and early results such as operative and hospital mortality. Results: In total 124,299 vascular treatments were registered by 1,038 institutions in 2015. 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 22,041, 15,671, 4,779, 2,313, 857, 48,837, and 29,801, respectively. In the field of aneurysm treatment, 18,907 cases of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) including common iliac aneurysm were registered, and 57.6% were treated by endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR). Among AAA cases, 1,850 (9.8%) cases were registered as ruptured AAA. The operative mortality of ruptured and un-ruptured AAA was 16.0%, and 0.6%, respectively. 33.6% of ruptured AAA were treated by EVAR, and the EVAR ratio was gradually increasing, but the operative mortality of open repair and EVAR for ruptured AAA was 16.6%, and 14.5%, respectively. Regarding chronic arterial occlusive disease, open repair was performed in 8,230 cases, including 1,194 distal bypasses to the crural or pedal artery, whereas endovascular treatment (EVT) was performed in 7,441 cases. The EVT ratio was gradually increased at 47.4%. Venous treatment including 47,046 cases with varicose vein treatments and 531 cases with lower limb deep vein thrombosis were registered. Regarding other vascular operations, 29,801 cases of vascular access operations and 1,511 lower limb amputation surgeries were included. Conclusions: The number of vascular treatments increased since 2011, and the proportion of endovascular procedures increased in almost all field of vascular diseases, especially EVAR for AAA, EVT for chronic arterial occlusive disease, and endovenous laser ablation (EVLA) for varicose veins. (This is a translation of Jpn J Vasc Surg 2020; 29: 161–179.)