Two new studies suggest that patients with small abdominal aortic aneurysms are safer adopting a wait and see approach rather than having immediate surgery to repair the weakened vessel.

The two new studies—one British, one American—find that male patients with aneurysms less than 5.5 cm in diameter are likely to live just as long if they delay surgical repair.

Delaying surgery postpones the risks associated with a complicated procedure and lets patients take advantage of future technological improvements, which might make surgery a little easier, according to the lead author of one of the studies, Dr Frank Lederle of the Veterans Affairs Medical Centers in Minneapolis, Minnesota (N Engl J Med 2002;346:1437-44).

In the study by Dr Lederle, researchers randomly …