The European Society for Vascular Surgery (ESVS) has developed new guidelines for the care of patients with vascular trauma. The 2025 clinical practice guideline document was recently published as an open-access article in press in the European Journal of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery (EJVES).
A writing committee consisting of first author Carl Magnus Wahlgren (Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden) and colleagues from across Europe has outlined a total of 105 recommendations.
The guidelines cover several topics, namely technical skill sets, bleeding control and restoration of perfusion, graft materials, and imaging; management of vascular trauma in the neck, thoracic aorta and thoracic outlet, abdomen, and upper and lower extremities; postoperative considerations after vascular trauma; and paediatric vascular trauma. Unresolved vascular trauma issues and patients’ perspectives are also discussed.
Wahlgren and team state that the guidelines “provide the most comprehensive, up-to-date, evidence-based advice to clinicians on the management of vascular trauma,” whilst acknowledging some limitations affecting their generalisability. “There is a general paucity of high-quality data and literature on vascular trauma management,” they write, noting that this applies to aspects relating to sex and ethnicity, but also conditions of low- and medium-income countries. “These limitations must be kept in mind when managing vascular trauma in different settings and environments.”
Read the full guidelines document here.
