The futility of surveillance for old and small aneurysms.

Surveillance of most patients with small AAA is appropriate. However, patients older than 80 years were significantly less likely than their younger counterparts to experience aortic growth reaching the threshold size for repair. Furthermore, in the unlikely event of AAA growth, patients older than 80 years were substantially less likely to undergo repair. These results suggest that in the context of patient-specific health and wishes, surveillance of AAAs <4 cm in octogenarians is costly and unlikely to be beneficial.