Abstract:

Background: Abdominal aortic aneurysm is a common disease of the elderly, with a complex etiology. The known risk factors for abdominal aortic aneurysm is age, male gender, presence of family history of AAA, presence of aneurysms elsewhere (especially at the femoral and popliteal artery), smoking, diabetes mellitus, atherosclerosis and hypertension. The aim of this study was to evaluate risk factors associated with operated abdominal aortic aneurysm in our center. Patients and Method: Our study population consisted of 210 patients who had been performed abdominal aortic aneurysm surgery between January 1998 and January 2010 in our clinic. The study was designed in a retrospective manner and all data were collected from hospital records. The patients were searched for diabetes, hypertension, age, gender, hyperlipidemia, atherosclerosis and smoking. Results: 187 of 210 patients male and 23 of 210 patients female. The average age was 64,4±8,9. The most common risk factors were diabetes mellitus (10.1%), hypertension (67.6%), hyperlipidemia (30.9%), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (35.7%) and smoking (76.7%) for abdominal aortic aneurysm. Smoking was found to be the most important risk factor for abdominal aortic aneurysm. To our knowledge, high rate of smoking in our society has a direct link with abdominal aortic aneurysm. The effective implementation of social campaigns to prevent smoking may be promising for reducing the incidence of abdominal aortic aneurysm in our society

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