J Hager1, T Länne, P Carlsson, F Lundgren. 1. Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, University Hospital, Linköping, Sweden; Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, University Hospital, Linköping, Sweden. Electronic address: Jakob.Hager@Lio.se.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Screening 65-year-old men for abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) is a cost-effective method to reduce the mortality from ruptured AAA. However, contemporary results show a lower than expected prevalence of AAA, thus questioning the benefit of screening. Since the prevalence increases with age, a possible way to enhance the benefit of screening might be to screen older men. Our aim was to determine the contemporary screening-detected prevalence among 70-year-old men. METHODS: A total of 5,623 unscreened 70-year-old men were invited to ultrasound screening. Uni- and multivariable analyses were used to assess the risk factors for AAA. RESULTS: The attendance rate was 84.0%. The prevalence of previously unknown AAAs was 2.3%. When adding the 64 men with an already known AAA to the screening-detected ones, the total prevalence in the population was at least 3.0%, and the previously discovered AAAs constituted 37.4% of the total prevalence. "Ex smoker" and "Current smoker" were the most important risk factors. CONCLUSIONS: When screening 70-year-old men for AAA, the prevalence was less than half that expected, despite a high attendance rate. Smoking was the strongest risk factor. Almost 40% of the men with AAAs were already known from other means than screening.
BACKGROUND: Screening 65-year-old men for abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) is a cost-effective method to reduce the mortality from ruptured AAA. However, contemporary results show a lower than expected prevalence of AAA, thus questioning the benefit of screening. Since the prevalence increases with age, a possible way to enhance the benefit of screening might be to screen older men. Our aim was to determine the contemporary screening-detected prevalence among 70-year-old men. METHODS: A total of 5,623 unscreened 70-year-old men were invited to ultrasound screening. Uni- and multivariable analyses were used to assess the risk factors for AAA. RESULTS: The attendance rate was 84.0%. The prevalence of previously unknown AAAs was 2.3%. When adding the 64 men with an already known AAA to the screening-detected ones, the total prevalence in the population was at least 3.0%, and the previously discovered AAAs constituted 37.4% of the total prevalence. "Ex smoker" and "Current smoker" were the most important risk factors. CONCLUSIONS: When screening 70-year-old men for AAA, the prevalence was less than half that expected, despite a high attendance rate. Smoking was the strongest risk factor. Almost 40% of the men with AAAs were already known from other means than screening.
Authors: Ellie Paige; Marc Clément; Fabien Lareyre; Michael Sweeting; Juliette Raffort; Céline Grenier; Alison Finigan; James Harrison; James E Peters; Benjamin B Sun; Adam S Butterworth; Seamus C Harrison; Matthew J Bown; Jes S Lindholt; Stephen A Badger; Iftikhar J Kullo; Janet Powell; Paul E Norman; D Julian A Scott; Marc A Bailey; Stefan Rose-John; John Danesh; Daniel F Freitag; Dirk S Paul; Ziad Mallat Journal: Circ Genom Precis Med Date: 2019-02
Authors: Dominic P J Howard; Amitava Banerjee; Jack F Fairhead; Ashok Handa; Louise E Silver; Peter M Rothwell Journal: J Am Heart Assoc Date: 2015-08-19 Impact factor: 5.501