Abstract
BACKGROUND: Contemporary national trends in the repair of ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) and intact AAAs are relatively unknown. Furthermore, screening is only covered by insurance for patients aged 65 to 75 years with a family history of AAAs and for men with a positive smoking history. It is unclear what proportion of patients who present with a ruptured AAA would have been candidates for screening. METHODS: Using the National Inpatient Sample from 2004 to 2015, we identified ruptured and intact AAA admissions and repairs using the International Classification of Diseases codes. We generated the screening-eligible cohort using previously identified proportions of male smokers (87%) and all patients with a family history of AAAs (10%) and applied these proportions to patients aged 65 to 75 years. We accounted for those who could have had a previous AAA diagnosis (17%), either from screening or an incidental detection in patients aged >75 years who had presented with AAA rupture. The primary outcomes were treatment and in-hospital mortality between patients meeting the criteria for screening vs those who did not. RESULTS: We evaluated 65,125 admissions for ruptured AAAs and 461,191 repairs for intact AAAs. Overall, an estimated 45,037 admitted patients (68%) and 25,777 patients who had undergone repair for ruptured AAAs (59%) did not meet the criteria for screening. Of the patients who did not qualify, 27,653 (63%) were aged >75 years, 10,603 (24%) were aged <65 years, and 16,103 (36%) were women. Endovascular AAA repair (EVAR) increased for ruptured AAAs from 10% in 2004 to 55% in 2015 (P < .001), with operative mortality of 35%. EVAR increased for intact AAAs from 45% in 2004 to 83% in 2015 (P < .001), with operative mortality of 2.0%. CONCLUSIONS: Most patients who had undergone repair for ruptured AAAs did not qualify for screening. EVAR was the primary treatment of both ruptured and intact AAAs with relatively low in-hospital mortality. Therefore, expansion of the screening criteria to include selected women and a wider age range should be considered.