The management of abdominal aortic aneurysms

The UK screening programme for abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) will screen all men aged 65 to facilitate surveillance for small aneurysms or operative repair for large ones Ultrasound surveillance for small aneurysms (<5.5 cm) is safe and cost effective All patients with AAAs have a high cardiovascular risk and warrant aggressive risk factor management, including smoking cessation The risk of aneurysm rupture outweighs that of postoperative morbidity and mortality for aneurysms >5.5 cm in patients with reasonable comorbidity Definitive management requires operative repair; endovascular (in morphologically suitable aneurysms) repair is associated with lower early and midterm mortality than open repair Surgical repair should be performed in high volume centres by experienced practitioners providing endovascular and open repai