Contemporary management of the infra-renal abdominal aortic aneurysm

Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) principally affect men over 60 years of age. Aneurysms are usually asymptomatic and detected coincidentally or following the onset of symptoms. Elective repair of an AAA is considered when the diameter reaches 5.5cm or annual expansion exceeds 1cm. Rupture represents a catastrophic event and carries an unacceptably high mortality. The advent of endovascular repair heralds an improvement in operative outcome for this disease process. In this review we provide an overview of the recent trials investigating the management of non-ruptured and ruptured aneurysms and the strategies that may be invoked to lower the mortality of this disease process