Vascular surgery: Repairing damaged vessels, restoring blood flow

If you have a condition that involves a clot or blockage in a blood vessel, UW Health's extraordinary vascular surgery team can design a treatment plan to get you back on the road to good health.

Overview

Repairing damaged vessels, restoring blood flow

Vascular disease impacts your blood vessels or lymph system.

At UW Health, our vascular surgeons care for adults and children with these common and complex conditions. We manage aortic, carotid artery, mesenteric and peripheral artery disorders. We use minimally invasive and open surgery techniques to take care of chronic and emergent conditions.

About

Understanding vascular surgery

Vascular surgery repairs the arteries, lymph vessels or veins throughout your body.

There are many types of vascular surgery. They include bypass, clot removal and widening of a blood vessel using a stent and strengthening the path for blood flow in an enlarged artery. Our specialists use advanced tools to perform these delicate operations.

We use minimally invasive techniques whenever possible. These give you a faster recovery time and less pain.

Conditions we treat

At UW Health, we provide vascular surgery to treat many conditions. These include:

  • Abdominal aortic aneurysm

  • Aortic aneurysm

  • Aortic dissection

  • Aortic valve disease

  • Carotid artery disease

  • Chronic critical limb ischemia

  • Compartment syndromes

  • High blood pressure (hypertension)

  • Peripheral vascular disease

  • Renal artery disease

  • Thoracic abdominal aneurysm

  • Thoracic aortic aneurysm

  • Varicose veins

  • Vascular diseases

  • Venous thrombosis

Careful evaluation to choose the right surgical technique

You’ll talk with your vascular care team about the right treatment plan for you. Your doctor looks at how medicine and exercise treatments have been working. Your doctor may order lab tests to help make a decision about surgery.

Your team consults with other specialists in cardiovascular care, imaging, neurology, physical therapy and rehabilitation to coordinate the best care plan for you.

Treatment process

Advanced procedures for all types of vascular conditions

As a UW Health patient, you get access to the most advanced vascular treatments.

Our doctors test new surgical techniques and vascular devices. Our research and clinical trials give you access to many innovative treatments.

Treatments we offer include:

We use thin wire catheters and balloons to unblock arteries clogged by plaque buildup. Learn more

We perform surgery in different parts of the body to reroute vessels around a blocked passageway. This restores blood flow to a damaged area.

We surgically remove the clot or plaque and inner layers of the narrowed carotid artery.

We use stents to stabilize the aorta walls and prevent an aneurysm from bursting. For aneurysms that sit close to major arteries, specialized stents are sometimes used. These stents are custom made to fit your anatomy.

With this minimally invasive approach, your surgeon places a fabric-covered stent inside the aorta to create a new path for blood flow. The stent is placed by threading a thin wire catheter through a vessel in your groin to the aneurysm.

We bypass damaged veins and restore blood flow to the limbs to avoid amputation.

We use angioplasty to open up small arteries in the legs. Our limb salvage team also provides reconstructive surgery to return blood flow in limbs that would otherwise need to be amputated.

We reach the damaged aorta through the abdomen. We sew a synthetic graft into the aorta to build a new space for blood flow.

We place mesh wire structures inside vessels to strengthen the vessel walls. This keeps them open and prevents them from bursting. In some cases, we use stents coated in medicines that prevent plaque buildup.

We use minimally invasive and endovascular procedures to close varicose veins and reduce their appearance and the pain they cause.

Meet our team

Specialty care for vascular disease

The vascular surgery team at UW Health includes experts in endovascular and open vascular procedures.

Our providers

Locations

How to find us

We offer specialized vascular disease clinics at UW Health locations in Madison.