Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a fairly common presentation with 200,000 new cases diagnosed in the U.S. every year. An aneurysm is a dilated portion of a blood vessel in the body, and AAA resides in the abdomen. Nowadays, these are most often discovered incidentally while patients are being investigated for something unrelated. Risk factors include increasing age, smoking, male, family history, and other cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol.

AAA can cause abdominal pains, and the most concerning finding is when an aneurysm ruptures meaning the vessel bursts. This is a high mortality event, and is a surgical emergency. The goal of monitoring is to catch these aneurysms early enough that we can operate on them when they reach a size where the benefit of surgery outweighs rthe risk of monitoring. This is usually somewhere between 5-5.5cm.

The two options for repair include open repair with a traditional midline abdominal incision or a minimally invasive stent repair called EVAR. The vascular specialist will discuss with you about the two options based on the anatomy of the AAA.