OPERATIVE MORTALITY AND LONG-TERM RELATIVE SURVIVAL OF PATIENTS OPERATED ON FOR ASYMPTOMATIC ABDOMINAL AORTIC-ANEURYSM

Objective: Assessment of mortality and long-term relative survival fol lowing repair of asymptomatic abdominal aortic aneurysms. Design: Retr ospective review. Setting: University Hospital. Materials: Three hundr ed and twenty seven patients with a median age of 68 years and male to female proportion of 10:1. Chief Outcome Measures: Operative mortalit y and long-term mortality obtained from Norwegian Registrar's Office. Demographically matched expected survival calculated from death rate f ables published by the Norwegian Central Bureau of Statistics. Main Re sults: The overall operative mortality was 5.2%. Ten-year survival rat e for all the patients was 38% compared to the expected of 52%. The st andard mortality rate teas 1.30, indicating a 30% higher mortality com pared to a demographically matched population. Older patients and pati ents with known cardiac disease had significantly increased operative mortality. These patients also had the lowest long-term survival. Pati ents with cardiac disease suffered a postoperative mortality more than two times expected. Conclusions: Further studies are needed to define subgroups unsuitable for elective surgery.