Surgery for Aortic Aneurysm Has Never Been Easier or Safer

Most of us don't know about AAA—abdominal aortic aneurysm, a life-threatening weakening of the aorta, an important blood vessel. If you're male and a smoker, screening for AAA has proven to reduce aneurysm-related deaths by half. Men are five times more likely to develop an aneurysm; women are at some risk, too.

Screening is something doctors wish would happen more often. They know that only 10-12% of aneurysms found in a screening will need immediate surgery. Most others are small. Those can be carefully watched until the right time comes for surgery. The more closely your aneurysm is watched, the better your chances for a long life without the rupture of an aneurysm.

The best news is that surgery to repair aneurysm has never been safer and less invasive. Those surgical repairs once meant eight days in the hospital. Stanford's vascular surgeons thought that was unnecessarily long. After long experience, considerable research and clinical trials, they pioneered tiny devices that can, without open surgery, reach the aneurysm to repair it. Our advanced procedure is so effective and so minimally invasive that you can go home in one day.