Tracking the performance of endovascular devices

The linked study by Goodney and colleagues in The BMJ (doi:10.1136/bmj-2022-071452) is an important evaluation of medium to long term outcomes after endovascular repair of abdominal aortic aneurysm.1 It not only quantifies and explains the nature of the long term outcomes for patients, but also provides insight into how surgeons might harness routinely collected data to monitor the performance of surgical devices.Starting in 2003, the authors used a patient registry to collect demographic and operative data on patients undergoing endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) in centres in the US and Canada. They were able to follow up patients after discharge from hospital through linkage to patient level data in the Medicare database. Almost a fifth (14.9-19.5%) of patients required another intervention related to their aortic aneurysm (aortic reintervention) within five years of their initial EVAR, and 2.4-4.3% developed a ruptured aneurysm. The authors found no evidence of a plateau in rates…
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