Reply

We greatly appreciate Ms Barbey's interest in our paper and acknowledge the inherent limitations of retrospective registry-based studies. As for the design of the registry, only data for patients undergoing abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) repair are available. Consequently, information on patients not surviving their rupture or on surviving patients who were not considered eligible for repair is missing. Although we acknowledge that this may influence the AAA diameter-at-rupture distribution (namely, larger diameters could carry a greater risk for fatal bleeding), we do not have indications for significant sex-specific influences on such a phenomenon as would be required to have an impact on our conclusions.
Source: Journal of Vascular Surgery - Category: Surgery Authors: Tags: Letter to the Editor Source Type: research