Eligibility rates of ruptured and symptomatic AAA for endovascular repair.

Purpose: To determine the anatomical eligibility rate for endovascular repair of ruptured and symptomatic abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) using commercially available endografts.

Methods: In a retrospective review, 28 preoperative computed tomographic (CT) scans were examined from among 83 patients who underwent surgical repair of a ruptured or acutely symptomatic AAA at a university-based tertiary care center during the past 10 years. The proximal aortic neck, aneurysm, and iliac dimensions were compared to corresponding measurements from 100 preoperative CT scans from patients who underwent elective repair of asymptomatic AAA. Based on expanded selection criteria for the 2 FDA-approved endografts (AneuRx and Ancure), eligibility rates for endovascular repair were compared between patients with ruptured/symptomatic and asymptomatic AAAs.

Results: The proximal neck of the ruptured/symptomatic AAAs was on the average 2 mm larger in diameter (25 +/- 4 versus 23 +/- 3 mm, p=0.04) and 7 mm shorter (16 +/- 10 versus 23 +/- 14, p=0.017) than asymptomatic AAAs. The maximum AAA diameter was significantly larger in the ruptured/symptomatic group (64 +/- 16 mm) than in the asymptomatic group (58 +/- 11 mm, p=0.033). Of the 28 ruptured/symptomatic AAAs assessed morphologically, 13 (46%) were anatomically eligible for endovascular repair compared to 74 of the 100 asymptomatic AAAs (p=0.006). The main cause for exclusion was an unfavorable proximal neck, which was present in 15 (54%) of the 28 ruptured/symptomatic AAAs and in 24 (24%) of the 100 asymptomatic AAAs (p=0.003).

Conclusions: A significantly smaller proportion of patients presenting with ruptured/symptomatic AAA are anatomically eligible for endovascular AAA repair compared to patients with asymptomatic AAA due to unfavorable proximal neck anatomy.