[Inflammatory aneurysms of the abdominal aorta]

Approximately 10 per cent of abdominal aneurysms have an excessively thick wall that sometimes involve duodenum, cava or colon by an inflammatory process. Between February 1986 and December 1992, 147 patients with abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) were treated surgically and in 13 (8.8%) the aneurysms were found to be inflammatory. Their mean age was 67.3 years (70.1 years in non inflammatory group) and all were symptomatics initially (abdominal pain in 53%, rupture in 23%, mass in 15%). The operative mortality for elective resection was 37% in patients with inflammatory abdominal aortic aneurysms (IAAA) decreasing to 9% in the AAA group without inflammatory involvement. We conclude that surgery is indicated in these patients to prevent rupture and to hasten the subsidense of inflammatory process ever with postoperative morbi-mortality increased.