No conclusion for men aged 65-75 who have never smoked

doi:10.1136/bmj.39563.442407.80

BMJ 2008;336:974 (3 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.39563.442407.80

Letters

Screening for aortic aneurysm

No conclusion for men aged 65-75 who have never smoked

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Brearley cites the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF)in support of abdominal aortic aneurysm screening.¹ However,it makes no recommendation for or against screening in men aged65-75 who have never smoked. The task force did find good evidencethat screening in these men leads to decreased abdominal aorticaneurysm specific mortality, but they have a lower prevalenceof large abdominal aortic aneurysms than men who have ever smoked,so the potential benefit is small. There is good evidence thatscreening and early treatment lead to important harms, includingincreased number of operations with associated clinically significantmorbidity and mortality, and short term psychological harm.The task force concluded that the balance between the benefitsand harms of screening for abdominal aortic aneurysm is tooclose to make a general recommendation in this population.²