Endovascular repair of abdominal aortic aneurysms: our early experience

Endovascular repair of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) seems to hold the potential for decreased perioperative mortality and morbidity associated with the standard open repair by eliminating major surgical exposure of the aorta and prolonged aortic cross-clamping. After several years of FDA-approved clinical trials of multiple aortic-stented grafts, the FDA, in September 1999, approved two devices (the ANCURE and the AneuRx) for commercial use in the United States. We implanted the first device in the Tri-State area at the Charleston Area Medical Center (CAMC) on Feb. 6, 2000, and this study reviews our early experiences with 15 patients utilizing these two devices at CAMC.