Vascular Disease: Types, Causes, Symptoms and Treatment (2024)

What is vascular disease?

Vascular disease includes any condition that affects your circulatory system, or system of blood vessels. This ranges from diseases of your arteries, veins and lymph vessels to blood disorders that affect circulation.

Blood vessels are elastic-like tubes that carry blood to every part of your body. Blood vessels include:

Arteries that carry blood away from your heart.
Veins that return blood back to your heart.
Capillaries, your tiniest blood vessels, which link your small veins and arteries, deliver oxygen and nutrients to your tissues and take away their waste.

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Types of Vascular Disease

Some vascular diseases affect your arteries, while others occur in your veins. They can also happen only in specific parts of your body.

Peripheral artery disease

Like the blood vessels of your heart (coronary arteries), your peripheral arteries (blood vessels outside your heart) also may develop atherosclerosis, the buildup of plaque (fat and cholesterol deposits), inside them. Over time, the buildup narrows the artery. Eventually, the narrowed artery causes less blood to flow, which may lead to ischemia, or inadequate blood flow to your body's tissue. Types of peripheral arterial disease include:

Peripheral artery disease: A blockage in your legs. Total loss of circulation can lead to gangrene and loss of a limb.
Intestinal ischemic syndrome: A blockage in the blood vessels leading to your gastrointestinal system.
Renal artery disease: A blockage in your renal arteries can cause renal artery disease and kidney failure.
Popliteal Entrapment Syndrome: A rare vascular disease that affects the legs of some young athletes. The muscle and tendons near the knee compress the popliteal artery, restricting blood flow to the lower leg and possibly damaging the artery.
Raynaud's Phenomenon: Consists of spasms of the small arteries of your fingers, and sometimes toes, from exposure to cold or stress.
Buerger's Disease: Most commonly affects the small and medium-sized arteries, veins and nerves. Although the cause is unknown, there is a strong association with tobacco use or exposure. The arteries of your arms and legs become narrowed or blocked, causing lack of blood supply (ischemia) to your fingers, hands, toes and feet. With severe blockages, the tissue may die (gangrene), making it necessary to amputate affected fingers and toes. Superficial vein inflammation and symptoms of Raynaud's can occur as well.

Carotid artery issues

These happen in the two main carotid arteries in your neck.

Venous disease

Veins are flexible, hollow tubes with flaps inside, called valves. When your muscles contract, these one-way valves open, and blood moves through your veins. When your muscles relax, the valves close, keeping blood flowing in one direction through your veins.

If the valves inside your veins become damaged, the valves may not close completely. This allows blood to flow in both directions. When your muscles relax, the valves inside the damaged vein(s) will not be able to hold the blood. This can cause pooling of blood or swelling in your veins. The veins bulge and look like ropes under the skin. The blood begins to move more slowly through your veins and may stick to the sides of your vessel walls. Symptoms include heaviness, aching, swelling, throbbing or itching. Blood clots can form.

Varicose veins: Bulging, swollen, purple, ropy veins, seen just under your skin. Damaged valves within the veins cause this.
Spider veins: Small red or purple bursts on your knees, calves, or thighs. Swollen capillaries (small blood vessels) cause this.
Klippel-Trenaunay syndrome (KTS): A rare congenital (present at birth) vascular disorder.
May-Thurner syndrome (MTS): Your right iliac artery compresses your left iliac vein, which increases the risk of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) in your left extremity.
Thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS): A group of disorders that happen with compression, injury or irritation of the nerves and/or blood vessels (arteries and veins) in your lower neck, armpit and upper chest area.
Chronic venous insufficiency (CVI): A condition that happens when the venous wall and/or valves in your leg veins are not working effectively, making it difficult for blood to return to your heart from your legs.

Blood clots

A clot forms when clotting factors in your blood make it coagulate or become a solid, jelly-like mass. When a blood clot forms inside a blood vessel (a thrombus), it can come loose and travel through your bloodstream, causing a deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, heart attack or stroke.

Blood clots in your arteries can increase the risk for stroke, heart attack, severe leg pain, difficulty walking or even the loss of a limb.

Hypercoagulable states or blood clotting disorders: Conditions that put people at increased risk for developing blood clots because they make blood more likely to form blood clots (hypercoagulable) in the arteries and veins. You can inherit these conditions (congenital, occurring at birth) or acquire them. These disorders include high levels of factors in your blood that cause blood to clot (fibrinogen, factor 8, prothrombin) or not enough natural anticoagulant (blood-thinning) proteins (antithrombin, protein C, protein S). The most aggressive disorders include circulating antiphospholipid antibodies, which can cause clots in both arteries and veins.
Deep vein thrombosis (DVT): A blood clot occurring in a deep vein.
Pulmonary embolism: A blood clot that breaks loose from a vein and travels to your lungs.
Axillo-subclavian vein thrombosis, also called Paget-Schroetter Syndrome: Most common vascular condition to affect young, competitive athletes. The condition develops when your collarbone (clavicle), first rib or the surrounding muscle compresses a vein in your armpit (axilla) or in front of your shoulder (the subclavian vein). This increases your risk of blood clots.
Superficial thrombophlebitis: A blood clot in a vein just under your skin.

Aortic aneurysm

An aneurysm is an abnormal bulge in a blood vessel wall. Aneurysms can form in any blood vessel, but they occur most commonly in the aorta (aortic aneurysm) which is the main blood vessel leaving the heart:

Thoracic aortic aneurysm.
Abdominal aortic aneurysm.

Fibromuscular dysplasia (FMD)

Fibromuscular dysplasia (FMD): A rare medical condition in which people have abnormal cellular growth in the walls of their medium and large arteries. This can cause the arteries with abnormal growth to look beaded and become narrow. This can cause issues with the arteries, including aneurysms and dissection.

Lymphedema

The lymphatic system includes an extensive network of lymph vessels and lymph nodes that helps coordinate your immune system's function to protect your body from foreign substances. Lymphedema, an abnormal buildup of fluid, develops when lymph vessels or lymph nodes are missing, impaired, damaged or removed.

Primary lymphedema (rare): Some people are born without certain lymph vessels or have abnormalities in them.
Secondary lymphedema: Happens as a result of a blockage or interruption that alters the lymphatic system. Causes of this include: infection, malignancy, surgery, scar tissue formation, trauma, deep vein thrombosis (DVT), radiation or other cancer treatment.

Vasculitis

Your blood vessels can get inflamed because of a medicine, an infection or an unknown cause. This can make it hard for blood to travel through your blood vessels. This is sometimes associated with rheumatological conditions or connective tissue disease. Vasculitis can also cause an aneurysm.

Who does vasculopathy affect?

Some people are born with vascular diseases they inherit from their parents. In these cases, such as blood clotting disorders, they start dealing with this issue at a younger age. However, many vascular diseases develop over time because of an accumulation of plaque (fat and cholesterol) in the arteries, such as peripheral artery disease or carotid artery disease. Atherosclerosis, the hardening of the arteries, can start when you’re a teen and cause problems in middle age or later.

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How common is vascular disease?

Vascular diseases are very common in America, partly because so many people weigh too much and have diabetes. The most common vascular diseases include peripheral artery disease (PAD) and carotid artery disease.