Abdominal aortic aneurysm screening during transthoracic echocardiography in asymptomatic patients in Guilan province

The prevalence of detected abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) during transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) has been different in previous studies based on the study population, and no data are available on AAA in the population of north of Iran. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of AAA in individuals aged 50 and over in the north of Iran who were a candidate for TTE.

This cross sectional study was conducted on all individuals aged 50 and over who referred to our cardiovascular center for TTE evaluation from October 2016 to October 2017. The maximum diameter of the whole abdominal aorta was accepted as abdominal aortic size and a diameter ≥ 30 mm as AAA. All statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS Version 22.0. Also, Mann-Whitney and chi-squared tests were used to compare variables. A p<0.05 was considered significant.

In total, 1411 patients underwent TTE in this study and abdominal aorta was visualized in 1329 patients (93.9%) successfully. The prevalence of AAA was 0.5% (7 patients, 95% CI: 0.496-0.503) during the study period. Patients with AAA were significantly older (p=0.002), with a mean age of 74.4±7.7 years, and 85.7% (6 patients) had hypertension, which was significantly higher (p=0.022) than patients without AAA.

This study showed that the AAA prevalence during standard TTE in the northern population of Iran aged 50 and over was 0.5%, which was lower than a previous study in Tehran that found AAA on 3.8% of screened patients. Patients with AAA in this population were significantly older and more hypertensive.