Changes of the infrarenal aortic segment after conventional abdominal aortic aneurysm repair

Objectives: to delineate the natural history of the residual infrarenal aor tic segment after conventional abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) repair. Design: open prospective study. Patients and methods: between 1990 and 1997, 100 patients, who underwent co nventional infrarenal AAA repair at our department, were followed annually by means of colour duplex ultrasonography. Data from 76 patients who had at least 3 scans were analysed. Results: mean duration of follow-up was 4.7 years (range: 3-8 years.). The residual infrarenal aorta dilated a mean of 0.57 mm annually. No patient re quired reoperation. There was no significant correlation between dilatation and any of the recorded risk factors except for the initial neck diameter (p = 0.03). Conclusions: conventional AAA surgery is durable so that surveillance, duri ng the first 5 postoperative years, is not justified in terms of cost-effec tiveness. The impact of such a dilatation on endovascular AAA repair requir es further investigation.