Management of urgent intact abdominal aortic aneurysms.

Fifty patients with acute and urgent but unruptured abdominal aortic aneurysms were reviewed. The mortality rate was 24.3% in 37 patients having aneurysm resection and graft replacement. The mortality rate in patients developing cardiac and renal complications after surgery was 100%. Nine patients did not receive surgery and four patients had a laparotomy but did not have their aortic aneurysms repaired. Patients presenting with urgent but stable and unruptured abdominal aortic aneurysms require careful but swift assessment before surgery, and have a higher mortality than patients undergoing elective aneurysm surgery.