Using Bacteriostatic Water for Diluent for Sclerotherapy

This is an image of a 1mm spider vein treated with Polidocanol 0.15 diluted with ½ normal saline. What is interesting about this image, is that there is no lumen after treatment. This demonstrates that there is apposition of the vein wall. This would never be seen where the dilution is straight normal saline. Our histo studies show that using bacteriostatic water for dilution increases the strength of the sclerosant by a factor of 2-3x.