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Endovascular repair now is performed more commonly than open repair for elective treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA). To compare both short- and long-term outcomes with these two procedures, researchers conducted this observational study in Medicare patients. Using propensity scoring, they assembled 40,000-patient endovascular- and open-repair cohorts who were closely matched in numerous clinical and demographic variables. Procedures were performed between 2001 and 2008. Patients who required visceral or renal bypass were excluded.
Thirty-day rates of death and complications were significantly lower with endovascular than with open repair (1.6% vs. 5.2% for mortality). Although aneurysm rupture was significantly more common in the e…