President Donald Trump has been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency. What is it and how is it treated?

Dr. Stephen Stanziale, director of vascular surgery at MedStar Franklin Square Hospital, said venous insufficiency is mostly seen in the legs and is where the veins have trouble draining the blood.

During a checkup to follow up on swelling in his legs, Trump was found to have chronic venous insufficiency. He is 79 years old.

“Very commonly, it’s just sort of a progressive problem that happens with age,” he said.

“Commonly, this is due to damage to the valves and those valves prevent the blood from refluxing down into the lower leg, and then when the valves don’t work, the blood flow doesn’t get back to the heart and the central venous system as well as it once did.”

What are the symptoms of chronic venous insufficiency?

“In its mildest form, it can cause a little bit of swelling, and some people, that bothers them, and others, it doesn’t,” he said.

But it can also cause more serious complications.

“If the skin gets too weak, ulcers can form and cause open wounds,” he said.

Blood clots could be an issue as well.

“The risks associated with developing clots is not very high, but is certainly raised in people that have venous insufficiency,” he said.

What can be done to treat it? He said compression therapy is usually the first step.

“Most commonly it’s in compression stockings,” Stanziale said. “These are, you know, calf-high, sort of tightly fitting stockings that compress the legs and they augment the body’s natural ability to help bring the blood from the feet and the ankles back into the central system.”

For more severe cases, Stanziale said they can do procedures and surgery.

“Most commonly, we do minimally invasive procedures to shut down the dysfunctional vein, and this allows blood to be rerouted to a more functional pathway,” he said.