Case Report: Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm

Many research studies have demonstrated that age is a primary risk factor for the prevalence of diseases within developed countries, most notably concerning cardiovascular disease, which has been found to be the leading cause of death globally. Among the diseases that fall beneath this umbrella term of cardiovascular disease, aortic aneurysms (AA) and cerebrovascular accident (CVA; i.e. stroke) are two of the more prevalent and well-known diseases that are identified among the elderly population. However, despite the increasing prevalence of both AAs and CVAs within the elderly in tandem with their shared risk factors - hypertension, smoking, hyperlipidemia, etc. - limited research has been conducted to assess a potential associative co-occurrence of both diseases. Retrospective analysis conducted in one study from The American Journal of Cardiology found that, among 212 patients with thoracic aortic aneurysms, there was a 9.0% prevalence of intracranial aneurysms (ICAs) - a ninefold difference compared to the general population - while another study from the National Library of Medicine found that those with a known aortic aneurysm/dissection are at higher risk for both ICAs and subsequent aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhages (SAH), one of two primary stroke classifications. To further explore this concurrency of AAs and CVAs, we conducted a case-study of a patient with an abdominal aortic aneurysm that passed away following a left middle cerebral artery stroke. Identifying a relationship between AA and CVA development can assist healthcare providers in establishing screening protocols for patients with known AAs in order to improve the odds of successful repair to prevent rupture as well as a preventative measure to reduce the likelihood of stroke, especially among the elderly.