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Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) are more common in men than in women but are more often fatal in women. As part of the Women’s Health Initiative, researchers prospectively followed a cohort of nearly 162,000 postmenopausal women (age range, 50–79) during a mean of 7.8 years in 40 U.S. centers. AAA events were defined based on hospital admission with confirmed AAA that was symptomatic, required intervention, or both.
During the study period, 184 AAA events were recorded, 18 of which occurred in the group of 301 women with known AAAs at enrollment. Multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that age (odds ratio, 1.8 per 10 years), current smoking (OR, 4.2 compared with past smoking and 8.7 compared with never smoking), and existing AAA (…