At What Size Should An Aortic Aneurysm Be Repaired?

Health and Wellness

Five things you should know well-nigh aortic aneurysms

Risk factors, preventive care, surgery: We asked M Health Fairview Vascular Surgeon Amy Reed, MD, to reply some common questions nigh aortic aneurysms.

July 26, 2022
By Staff Author

Aortic aneurysms are known every bit a "silent killer" with good reason. Unless plant by accident – unremarkably during a routine, unrelated medical test – aortic aneurysms may go undetected until they rupture, at which signal a person only has minutes to live.

Nosotros sat down with M Health Fairview Vascular Surgeon Amy Reed, MD, who as well serves as a professor and chief of vascular surgery at University of Minnesota Medical School and is co-managing director of the AM Health Fairview Aortic Center. Reed gave usa answers to some common questions that patients may take about aortic aneurysms, including take chances factors, prevention, and treatment options.

What is an aortic aneurysm? How are they constitute?

Aortic aneurysms are a swelling and weakening in the wall of the aorta, the largest artery in the human body. This is the artery that exits the center and supplies blood to the brain and unabridged body. If the aneurysm is not found and identified, it may burst, causing meaning and often fatal bleeding.

A normal aorta is nearly three centimeters—or a little over one inch across. An aneurysm occurs when a portion of the aorta has enlarged to at to the lowest degree one.5 times its normal size. Aortic aneurysms less than 4 centimeters in size have a low take chances of bursting, merely an aneurysm more than than 5.five centimeters in diameter has an increasing gamble of rupturing in the next yr.

1 of the things that makes aortic aneurysms and then dangerous is that many times, they become undetected until they burst. Near aneurysms plant earlier a rupture are discovered by accident during an unrelated medical test.

What health factors increase your take chances of an aortic aneurysm?

Men are at much higher risk of developing an aneurysm than women, though aneurysms do occur in women and often first present in women as a rupture. 58 percent of aortic aneurysms diagnosed in 2022 were in men, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A family history of aneurysms can likewise increase your risk. Smoking, obesity, age and high claret pressure can all put a person at higher take chances for aneurysms.

About 75 percent of abdominal aortic aneurysms happen in people with a history of smoking, according to the CDC. Nevertheless, it's of import to note that anyone—even people in excellent physical condition—tin endure an aortic aneurysm. Patients who have a history of aortic dissection – a status from high blood pressure where the wall of the aorta "unzips" or splits – are also at risk of developing an aortic aneurysm. This condition impacts men and women.

Are there any activities you can exercise to prevent an aortic aneurysm or reduce your adventure?

People at higher risk for an aortic aneurysm tin prefer eye-salubrious lifestyle changes, including a healthy diet, more physical activity, and smoking abeyance. Your doctor may also recommend medicines including statins, beta blockers, or other prescriptions that are by and large helpful for the cardiovascular system.

Learn more well-nigh M Wellness Fairview's vascular surgery care services.

How is an aortic aneurysm treated?

If the aneurysm is more than 4 centimeters in size, your doctor may recommend monitoring and some center- and cardiovascular-healthy lifestyle changes. Smaller aneurysms rarely rupture and grow at an average rate of ane-third of a centimeter each year.

If the aneurysm is more than v.v centimeters in size, or if it'due south rapidly getting larger, your doctor may recommend surgery to repair the aneurysm. In many cases, doctors will run a catheter through the patient'due south femoral artery in the groin to the site of the aneurysm in the aorta, then implant a stent graft. The stent graft reinforces the weakened aorta and somewhen the aneurysm will shrink around the graft. Under experienced care, this procedure is often possible using a minimally invasive approach with essentially no incisions. There are patients whose anatomy is not suitable for a stent repair in which open up surgery will exist necessary.

Though almost treatment centers in the nation require patients to be nether general anesthesia for a stent graft, our highly specialized 1000 Wellness Fairview intendance team performs many of these procedures with only local anesthesia and mild sedation. This approach allows for treatment of about eighty percent of abdominal aortic aneurysms. The remaining 20 percent of aneurysms are often better treated with open surgery to provide a definite cure in a place where a stent graft may exist less durable.

Although the majority of aneurysms are small and exercise not crave surgery, the presence of an aneurysm may indicate the patient has related wellness concerns that need attention.

Learn more than about Thousand Health Fairview's center care services.

How is Chiliad Health Fairview uniquely positioned to treat this condition?

M Health Fairview'due south multidisciplinary care teams are leaders in successfully treating aortic aneurysms. Our uniquely equipped hybrid operating rooms and the loftier level of expertise our intendance teams possess allows u.s. to treat both low- and high-risk patients. Many of our physicians are national and international leaders in the treatment of aortic aneurysms.

Because we offer country-of-the-art technology and care team expertise, we are leaders in providing aneurysm repair options for high-take a chance patients. Most repairs tin can be washed without incisions or the stress of full general anesthesia, which reduces the risk for patients with centre or lung bug. These advances mean fifty-fifty low-risk patients can become dorsum to their daily routine faster.

M Health Fairview's experts have developed a pilot program to help principal care doctors make up one's mind who should receive an ultrasound screening to observe aortic aneurysms on the basis of a number of health factors.