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ANEURYSM SCREENING

It’s a disease that suddenly kills thousands of Americans each year. Abdominal aortic aneurysms are weakenings in the largest artery in the body, the aorta. It’s estimated 2.7 million Americans are at risk for their aortas rupturing at any time. Now, legislation is being proposed that would provide for screening of aortic aneurysms.

It’s a disease that suddenly kills thousands of Americans each year. Abdominal aortic aneurysms are weakenings in the largest artery in the body, the aorta. It’s estimated 2.7 million Americans are at risk for their aortas rupturing at any time. Now, legislation is being proposed that would provide for screening of aortic aneurysms.

On Capital Hill, a bipartisan group of senators and representatives, along with the national aneurysm alliance has announced support of legislation designed to provide Medicare benefits which would pay for ultrasound screening to detect abdominal aortic aneurysms. The bill is called the Scave bill, which stands for “screen abdominal aortic aneurysms very efficiently.”

An abdominal aneurysm is an out pouching of the wall of the aorta….the largest artery in the body that acts as the main blood conduit which feeds all the organs. An aneurysm looks like a ballooning of the arterial wall due to a weakening of that wall. Dr. Robert Zwolak, spokesperson for the National Aneurysm Alliance, said, “Some unlucky day your aneurysm decides to burst, it ruptures and most people bleed to death internally at that time.”
Patient Norman Shaw was lucky enough to be in his doctor’s office, being worked up for his newly discovered aneurysm when his ruptured. “I felt this tremendous pain in my left side, and then a real not liquid flowing through the left portion of my abdomen, and I knew right here that my aneurysm had burst and that the hot liquid was my blood,” recalls Shaw.

Fortunately, Norman was one of the rare survivors. “The frustration for all of us about this disease is that is completely treatable curable and preventable if we find these aortic aneurysms,” remarks Dr. Zwolak.

Recent studies have validated that the best way to screen for abdominal aneurysms is by this test, an abdominal ultrasound. An aneurysm can be detected when it is small. It can be followed and fixed before it ruptures.

An ultrasound costs around 100 dollars, in New York and other places. But because it’s a screening test, it is not reimbursed. And lack of reimbursement is the primary reason older patients are not being offered the test. U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, says it is worth the price tag. “Over the next ten years the cost of doing this could run somewhere between two and four hundred million dollars,” states Dodd.

There are absolutely no warning signs until the aneurysm does rupture. It’s a completely silent disease, often caused by another silent disease, high blood pressure. So the only way to detect these is by a procedure like the ultrasound, which is the least expensive way to look for aneurysms. The good news is, if they are found, they can be fixed with a near 100 percent survival rate.

Whether it is cost effective will certainly come up in debate on the congressional floors. But Norman says that money isn’t the only object here. “There are very few of us that survive,” comments Shaw.

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