Data from nearly 500 patients suggest that frequent monitoring with CT to look for complications after endovascular repair of abdominal aortic aneurysms is unnecessary and that it could be done instead with ultrasound.

Investigators at Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Hospital in London prospectively enrolled 453 consecutive patients who underwent EVAR from April 2000 until January 2008. They recorded the rate of secondary interventions and related complications and also analyzed if CT surveillance could predict the need for reintervention.

The researchers found EVAR’s reintervention rate was just as low as surgery’s. They also found that most complications appear within three months after repair and that CT rarely spots any anomalies after that. They released results of their study at the 2009 SIR meeting.