A medical procedure that involves injecting a chemical solution into blood vessels or other tissues to cause them to shrink, harden, and eventually disappear. It is commonly used to treat varicose veins and spider veins.
From Greek 'skleros' meaning hard or hardening, combined with 'therapeia' meaning treatment. The term reflects the procedure's mechanism of hardening and closing off problematic vessels.
Sclerotherapy was first developed in the 1930s and uses the same principle that ancient physicians observed when they noticed that certain plant extracts could make tissues contract and harden. Modern sclerosing agents can make spider veins disappear so completely that patients often think they've been magically erased!
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