An Easy Affordable Statistical and Economic (Ease) Approach to Avoid Unnecessary and Expensive Exams to Monitor Patients With Small Aaa

Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm (AAA) is a localized enlargement of the abdominal aorta, such that the diameter exceeds 30 mm. AAA is a progressive growth leading to rupture, with high risk of mortality, therefore elective surgical repair is indicated when AAA diamenter is >55 mm. Screening programs, that use morphological imaging, have been developed internationally with the aim of detecting AAA before rupture with important limitations in term of cost and benefit for patients. Furthermore, different biochemical markers have been proposed to monitor AAA progression to overcome the above-mentioned limitations but none of them is used in the clinical practice. In fact, most of the biomarkers proposed are expensive and not feasible in the majority of laboratories. Combining different methodologies coming from Statistics and Operational Research fields, we developed an algorithm able to assess the importance of common biomarkers, requested in the clinical practice to evaluate the health of patient, and therefore no exams are required. Furthermore, we develop an Easy, Affordable Statistics and Economic (EASE) model able to identify if the AAA remain below the cut off for surgical repair. This prediction can provide guidance to how closely the patient’s abdominal aorta should be monitored avoiding additional and expensive exams.