Endovascular abdominal aortic aneurysm repair: 5-year follow-up results

Endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) offers a minimally invasive alternative to open repair and has the benefits of reduced perioperative morbidity and mortality. There are potential complications specific to EVAR, including device failure, graft migration, and endoleak, which necessitate long-term follow-up. This remains a relatively novel technique, and therefore, little long-term data exist. This study reports 5-year EVAR outcome data from a single center. Five-year follow-up data for 58 patients at a single center who underwent EVAR using a variety of different commercial devices was reviewed. All patients were followed up with 6-monthly duplex ultrasound scanning and clinical assessment in a nurse-led clinic, in addition to yearly computed tomographic (CT) scans for those participating in the EVAR trial. All patients in this series were male, with a median age of 72 years (range 58-81). Mean preoperative aortic diameter was 5.95 cm, and this reduced following EVAR to 5.2 cm (mean diameter) at 5 years. Mean hospital stay was 7 days, and there were no perioperative deaths. There were 20 (34%) early and 15 (26%) late complications. There were 13 endoleaks confirmed on CT; four (31%) were type I and nine (69%) were type II. All-cause mortality was 26%. There were no late aneurysm-related deaths. EVAR has the advantages of shorter hospital stay and reduced perioperative morbidity and mortality. Long-term follow-up remains a priority following aortic stenting in order to detect late complications such as endoleak.