John J. Bergan MD is founder of The Vein Institute in La Jolla and is a staff surgeon at Scripps Memorial Hospital, La Jolla, California, USA. Ali F. AbuRahma, M.D. is Professor of Surgery at the Robert C Byrd Health Sciences Center of West Virginia University, Charleston, West Virginia, USA. Dr Bergan is a world-renowned vascular surgeon who has already authored or edited thirty textbooks, nine of which are on venous disorders, including, for Springer, Chronic Venous Insufficiency: Diagnosis and Treatment with Jeffrey Ballad (1-85233-172-0) and Atlas of Endoscopic Perforator Vein Surgery with Peter Gloviczki (3-540-76171-3). Dr Bergan and Dr AbuRahma have collaborated previously and were… the editors of the Springer title Noninvasive Vascular Diagnosis (1-85233-128-3), which was published in November 1999.