title: Patient fitness and survival after abdominal aortic aneurysm repair in patients from the UK EVAR trials.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The aim was to use a validated fitness score to determine whether fitter patients with a large abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) benefited from having open rather than endovascular repair.
  
  
  METHODS
  The Customized Probability Index (CPI) was applied to patients in the Endovascular Aneurysm Repair (EVAR) I and II trials. Interaction tests between CPI and randomized group assessed the effect of fitness and type of AAA repair on elective 30-day mortality and 4-year survival.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The mean(s.d.) CPI scores were 3.6(9.3) for 1252 EVAR I patients and 10.0(11.3) for 404 EVAR II patients (range - 25 to + 43) (P < 0.001). The fitness of EVAR I patients was classified as good (579 patients, mean CPI - 4.2), moderate (331 patients, mean CPI 5.7) or poor (338 patients, mean CPI 15.1). Only in the good fitness group did 30-day mortality convincingly favour endovascular repair (odds ratio 0.24, P = 0.030), but overall the test of interaction was not significant (P = 0.363). For 4-year all-cause and aneurysm-related mortality, there was no benefit for either treatment across all fitness scores (P = 0.281 and P = 0.371 respectively).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The benefit of endovascular repair was most convincing in the fittest patients. There was no evidence that the fittest patients benefited more from open surgery.
authors.affiliation: Vascular Surgery Research Group, Imperial College, London, UK. louise.brown@imperial.ac.uk
authors.forename: L C
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.forename: R M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Greenhalgh
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Howell
authors.forename: J T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Powell
authors.forename: S G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Thompson
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D017544:Aortic Aneurysm, Abdominal / Q000401:mortality / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018579:Patient Selection; D010809:Physical Fitness; D016019:Survival Analysis; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014656:Vascular Surgical Procedures / Q000379:methods* / Q000401:mortality