The place of screening in the management of abdominal aortic aneurysm.
The present method of management of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms (AAA) is ineffective in preventing AAA rupture. 5000 people still die of AAA in the UK each year. Improvements in surgery can only reduce the mortality in the minority who reach hospital following chance detection, and then only by a few percent. Screening, with detection in the community and planned treatment can reduce the mortality of the disease by 58%. Screening programmes for AAA have recently been approved for men aged 65 years, in both the UK and the USA. The proposed UK National Screening Programme is outlined briefly.


CONCLUSIONS
If the aim of treatment is to reduce the mortality of the disease as a whole, resources would be better spent on screening programmes for AAA, rather than developing increasingly sophisticated operative techniques that could only reduce the overall death from AAA by a few percent.
Scott Research Unit, CMEC, St Richards Hospital, Royal West Sussex Trust, Chichester, West Sussex, UK. scottunit@rws-tr.nhs.uk
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Scott
D000368:Aged; D017544:Aortic Aneurysm, Abdominal / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000517:prevention & control; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D006113:United Kingdom