Background: Lower limb varicose veins are the commonest of all vascular disorders. It is one of the important vascular conditions that affect 25 million people in western civilizations. The most important underlying cause for primary varicose veins is incompetence of the great saphenous venous system, most commonly due to reflux at the sapheno-femoral junctional valve. These varicose veins can be treated by either open surgery or new modalities like endovascular surgeries. Conventional surgery (open surgery) involves sapheno-femoral disconnection at the sapheno-femoral junction and stripping of the great saphenous vein above the knee, which may be accompanied by phlebectomies of minor varicosities.

Aim: To compare the short term outcome between open surgery versus endovenous radiofrequency ablation with sclerotheraphy for great saphenous varicose veins in terms of post operative pain, duration of surgery, duration of hospital stay, early return to activities, complications such as hematoma, wound infection, and patient satisfaction.

Methods: A comparitive study was carried out among 60 subjects attending Department of Surgery, K.R. Hospital, Mysuru over a period of 12 months. Patients with symptomatic varicose veins who belong to CEAP classification 2-6 due to great saphenous vein incompetence with perforator incompetence were included in the study. Descriptive statistics reported using mean and standard deviation for continuous variable, numbers and percentage for the categorical variable and chi-square test or fisher’s exact test and for continuous variable Independent t-test or Mann Whitney u-test were used to analyse the results.

Results: Endovenous radiofrequency ablation is a better option in terms of less morbidity, less postoperative pain, requirement of analgesia, and it resulted in lesser hospital stay, and early return to normal activities than conventional surgery.

Conclusion: Endovenous radiofrequency ablation performed quicker and safer and resulted in a significantly better early outcome than conventional surgery.