Low prevalence of abdominal aortic aneurysm in hypertensive patients. A population-based study

The prevalence of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) was estimated by ultrasonography in hypertensives in the age group 50-70 years in geographically defined population. Only one case of AAA was found among 245 patients. This rather unexpected result implies a probability of less than 5% that the true prevalence of AAA is as high as 2% in hypertensives. Our population-based study indicates a lower prevalence than earlier studies based on necropsies and is an example of research cooperation between primary health care and specialized hospital care.