Nihon Geka Gakkai zasshi
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Nihon Geka Gakkai zasshi · Jan 2011
[Endovascular therapy of abdominal aortic aneurysms: present and future status in Japan].
Since the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare approved Cook's Zenith AAA in 2006, endovascular repair of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) has become a widespread, acceptable alternative to traditional surgical intervention in Japan, although it lagged far behind Western countries in adopting this technique. The number of patients who undergo endovascular aortic aneurysm repair (EVAR) is now 3,000 annually and it is expected to exceed 4,000 in the near future, which means that more than half of patients with abdominal aortic or iliac arterial aneurysms will undergo EVAR. A paradigm shift has thus emerged in the field of AAA repair, in which surgical graft replacement was the gold standard for more than 50 years. ⋯ EVAR has made it possible to treat high-risk patients because it does not require laparotomy. Therefore, patients who would have been observed without intervention in the past can now benefit from EVAR. In Japan, an extremely aged society, endovascular repair will become a much more common measure for the treatment of patients with AAA.