Meta analysis on mortality of ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysms

To assess the mortality of patients with ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysms undergoing open surgery and examine changes in mortality over time.

Literature databases were searched for relevant articles published between 1991 and 2006. Two reviewers independently performed study inclusion and data extraction. Primary outcome measure was 30 day or in-hospital mortality. Subgroup analyses were performed examining the effect of population- and hospital-based studies, hospital volume and type of surgeon.

From a total of 1419 identified studies, 145 observational studies met the inclusion criteria of which 116 were included in the systematic review comprising 60,822 patients. Overall mortality was 48.5% (95% CI: 48.1-48.9%) and did not change significantly over the years. Age increased over the years. For overall mortality a trend was seen in favour of high-volume hospitals.

This meta-analysis suggests that mortality of patients with RAAA treated by open surgery has not changed over the past 15 years. This could be explained by increased age of patients undergoing RAAA repair.