Epidemiology of abdominal aortic aneurysm

__________________________________________________________________________________________ Introduction: Abdominal aortic aneurysm is a localized widening, located below the renal arteries. The exact etiology is not fully understood. Probably the main role in the formation of abdominal aortic aneurysm plays a correlation between genetic and environmental factors, especially smoking. The disease is primarily diagnosed in older men although in recent years there is an increased prevalence of the disease among women. Untreated abdominal aortic aneurysm increases in size until it ruptures, which often leads to the death of patient. The disease is generally asymptomatic and most of the aneurysms are detected accidentally, eg., during ultrasound examination of the abdominal cavity. Literature search: The PubMed database was searched in order to collect the literature needed to elaborate the aspects of abdominal aortic aneurysm epidemiology. The search was limited to the review of the original publication from the last 10 years. Conclusions: Analysis of the results indicates that the incidence of abdominal aortic aneurysm in Australia is higher than in America and Europe. The total incidence in Western countries is higher than in Asia. AAA incidence in men is higher than in women. Aneurysms having a diameter of 30 to 39 mm were diagnosed more often than aneurysms with a diameter of more than 40 mm.