Familial abdominal aortic aneurysms: screening of 71 families.

OBJECTIVE

To find out the local prevalence of familial abdominal aortic aneurysms.

DESIGN

Retrospective open study.

SETTING

University hospital, Finland.

SUBJECTS

71 families of patients operated on for abdominal aortic aneurysm.

INTERVENTIONS

Ultrasound screening, personal interviews and study of population registers, death certificates and hospital records.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

The diagnosis of asymptomatic abdominal aortic aneurysms.

RESULTS

148 of the 291 patients operated on replied to our letter (51%). The ultrasound examination was carried out on 123 siblings and detected abdominal aortic aneurysm in one sister (1/78 about 1%) and four brothers (4/45 about 9%). By the other methods data were obtained on 77 siblings (54 men and 23 women) of whom two sisters and six brothers were found to have abdominal aortic aneurysms. When the figures for the 71 families were combined, 10% of the brothers (10/99) and 3% of the sisters (3/101) had abdominal aortic aneurysms. These siblings were from 11 different families and so the prevalence of families with at least two affected persons was 16% (11/71). The index patient in 65 families was male and the prevalence of risk families (with two or more cases of aneurysm) in this group was 15% (10/65). The index case was a woman in six families giving a prevalence of 33% (2/6) (p = 0.2 between the groups).

CONCLUSION

The screening of families of patients with abdominal aortic aneurysms should be restricted to the brothers of these patients.