Women were significantly more likely than men to report lower limb symptoms such as heaviness or tension, swelling, aching, restless legs, cramps, and itching. The prevalence of symptoms tended to increase with age in both sexes. In men, only itching was significantly related to the presence and severity of trunk varices (linear test for trend, P=0.011). In women there was a significant relation between trunk varices and the symptoms of heaviness or tension (P 0.001), aching (P 0.001), and itching (P 0.005). However, the level of agreement between the presence of symptoms and trunk varices was too low to be of clinical value, especially in men.