What are the treatment options for an Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm?

Once a decision has been made that a patient needs treatment for their abdominal aortic aneurysm, this can be performed either via an endovascular route or by traditional open surgery. The endovascular route usually involves inserting a graft through the groin into both arteries that are supplying the leg and feeding up a graft into the abdominal aorta and then inflating the graft and the graft usually has two legs one going into each of the abdominal vessels which is going down to supply the lower limbs. This can be done under either local anaesthetic, regional anaesthetic i.e. like an epidural that ladies have when they are delivering babies or under general anaesthesia. The alternative technique is to use traditional open surgery which involves a cut in the abdomen, general anaesthesia and the sewing in of a graft by the surgeon and obviously subsequent closure. are various pros and cons of the two techniques. The endovascular aneurysm repair undoubtedly involves less insult to the body, can be done without opening the abdomen and probably allows you to discharge the patient home earlier. And if we look at the 30 day outcome results, is undoubtedly a benefit in terms of endovascular aneurysm repair. However, in the long term, we know that those patients that have had an endovascular aneurysm repair, because various blood vessels can't be sewn off at the time of the operation, and various potential issues at the sites of fixation, you can develop something called an endoleak. If an endoleak develops and the aneurysm sac starts to get bigger this in itself is an indication for further intervention.