This is a question you should be asking a good cardiologist and surgeon about.

The specialist at a university hospital out of state who has done many of these operations and is following my case has told me the surgery is done once it leaches 5.0 cm He now measures my scan at 4.5 cm and I am on annual scans. I am also followed by a local cardiologist and he and local radiologist measure my scan at 4.2. So measurements are not exact and vary depend on who is measuring. They both told me that the chances of fatality when under 5.0 cm is extremely low where surgery can have a chance of a few percent. So they do not operate under 5 cm because of that unless they measure a rapid rate of increase. Very frustrating since I now have this for 3 1/2 years and losing on 71 years old.

In MY opinion (and I'm not even close to being a doctor in the medical profession) is do it sooner than later. I'm in reasonably good physical condition and had it done earlier this year at 80 and I'm here to tell you I have NOT "fully recovered" but doing OK. My 7 years older brother has the same thing and been told (by the Mayo Clinic) that he's too old to risk it.