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I’m 71 years old and my abdominal aorta aneurysm is 6.7 I’m scared !
Aortic Aneurysms | Last Active: Aug 4 11:13am | Replies (27)Comment receiving replies
Hi bitsy girl. To my understanding, 5.0 cm (not inches) is a general criteria. The decision would be up to the surgeon, who would take other conditions and symptoms into consideration.
My PCP is an internal medicine doctor. As my aneurysm is only 4.5 cm, he has advised we do “watchful waiting” and obtain a CT scan with contrast every 6 months to monitor if it is enlarging. I DO know that Medicare will only approve one CT scan every 6 months.
I am sure your physician is well aware of this criteria and will advise you based accordingly based on his findings.
Instead of waiting on the results of my bi-annual CTs, I find myself wanting to go ahead and schedule an appointment with a cardiothoracic surgeon to at least meet him and let him advise me.
Replies to "Hi bitsy girl. To my understanding, 5.0 cm (not inches) is a general criteria. The decision..."
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@tess5 Thanks for your reply. FWIW, my aneurysm is monitored by a vascular surgeon and it does make me feel better for some reason. My PCP is a PA so she is pretty quick to send me to a specialist for anything that is not very routine. Though his office does the monitoring, I only met with the actual surgeon after he saw a potential spurt of growth after a routine monitoring CT. He scheduled a CT for six months when the first had been after a year. If you doctor is scheduling at 6 mos., I’d guess he’s pretty conservative, that is, being pretty cautious. He may connect you with a surgeon if it gets closer to the threshold for surgery.
Good luck!