Introduction: Venous stenting following successful acute DVT thrombolysis
is thought to reduce recurrence rates and the rates of post thrombotic syndrome (PTS).The aim of this review is to evaluate venous stent patency and the impact on the development of PTS, recurrence, quality of life(QOL) and optimal post-procedural anticoagulation regimen in acute iliofemoral DVT treatment.

Method: EMBASE and Medline databases were interrogated to identify studies in which patients with acuteDVT where stented. The inclusion criteria were; RCTs for acute venous stenting, case serieswithmore than 5 patients, and studies published in English or Arabic.

Result: 760 articles were identified and following title, abstract and full text
screening, 27 articles were included. This included 542 patients stented following thrombolysis. Primary, assisted primary and secondary patency rates 12 months after stent placement ranged from 74-95%,90-95% and 84-100% respectively. Recurrence rates from 3 RCTs(n=213) showed a statistically significant difference in short-term follow-up favouring stenting, with lower recurrence rates of DVT mean numbers(P=0.002). PTS was assessed in most studies with an overall observed rate of 14.6% The incidence of stent re-thrombosis (n=542) was 7.9%. In 26% of studies, patients received additional antiplatelet therapy. QOL questionnaires were only employed in 11.1% of studies demonstrating an improvement in CIVIQ (22.67±3.01 vs 39.34±6.66) between test and control groups.

Conclusion: Venous stenting appears to be an effective adjunct to early
thrombus removal, lowering recurrence and PTS rates. Further studies are
needed to identify optimal anticoagulant regimen and to look at the effect of
interventional therapy on longterm QOL. Take-home message: Venous stenting appears to be an effective procedure in the context of acute lower limb DVT management, as well as lowering recurrence and PTS rates.