Management of tender abdominal aortic aneurysm.

Forty-eight patients with tender haemodynamically stable abdominal aortic aneurysms were evaluated. The aneurysms in 18 of these patients (37.5%) were found, at the time of surgery, not to have leaked. The mortality rate in patients with these tender non-leaking aneurysms undergoing emergency surgery was 16.6%. This high mortality rate can be improved by using computed tomography pre-operatively to prevent patients with non-leaking aneurysms from undergoing emergency surgery.