Do Hernias Contribute to Increased Severity of Aneurysmal Disease among Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Patients?

Aorta (Stamford)

Division of Molecular Biology and Human Genetics, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Stellenbosch University, Tygerberg, South Africa.

Published: February 2021

Background:  Connective tissue disorders could contribute to the pathogenesis of both abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) and hernias. We tested the hypothesis that hernias in AAA patients contribute to increased severity of the aneurysmal disease.

Methods:  A questionnaire was used to collect information from 195 AAA patients divided into four groups: (1) survivors ( = 22) of ruptured AAA, (2) patients ( = 90) after elective open repair, (3) patients ( = 43) after elective endovascular repair (EVAR), and (4) patients ( = 40) under surveillance of AAA. The control group consisted of 100 patients without AAA whose abdominal computed tomography (CT) scans were examined for the presence of hernias. Mann-Whitney -test, Chi-squared ( ) test, or Fisher's exact test (as appropriate) were used for statistical analyses. Multivariate logistic regression was used to control for potential confounding variables such as sex and age.

Results:  The prevalence of inguinal hernias was significantly higher in the AAA than the control group (25 vs. 9%,  = 0.001) and did not differ between the AAA subgroups (9, 24, 35, and 23% in subgroups 1 through 4, respectively,  = 0.15) based on univariate analysis. The prevalence of inguinal hernias did not differ ( = 0.15) between the two open surgery groups (groups 1 and 2), or when comparing all three operative procedures as a combined group to group 4 ( = 0.73). The prevalences of incisional hernias were 18 and 24% for groups 1 and 2, respectively, with no significant difference ( = 0.39). Inguinal hernia demonstrated a significant association with AAA on multivariate analysis ( = 0.006; odds ratio [OR] = 4.00; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.49-10.66).

Conclusions:  Our study confirms previous observations that patients with AAA have a high prevalence of hernias. Our results suggest that hernias do not contribute to increased severity of the aneurysmal disease.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8489993PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1055/s-0040-1719113DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

contribute increased
12
increased severity
12
severity aneurysmal
12
aaa patients
12
aaa
10
hernias
9
hernias contribute
8
aneurysmal disease
8
abdominal aortic
8
aaa control
8

Similar Publications

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!