How are venous abnormalities diagnosed?

Well, if a patient identifies what they think is a venous abnormality, they get referred to a vascular specialist. At this point, the vascular specialist would take a history, they would examine the patient, And if they were concerned about a venous malformation, they would then send them for an investigation. And this investigation could be a duplex ultrasound, so where they're able to visualize the vein or the malformation and see how flow, whether it's a high flow or a low flow malformation, meaning higher pressure or lower pressure. If there is more investigations required to decide what the management will be, they may use something called cross-sectional imaging, like a CT scan to do a CT venogram where they're able to identify the tissue in more detail that may be surrounding or involved with the malformation itself.