ABSTRACT
Endoleak is considered by many to be evidence of treatment failure of endovascular aneurysm repair and has been called “the major complication of endovascular aneurysm repair” (1–3). However, it is not clear that endoleak in and of itself represents an adverse event of the procedure. Rather, endoleak is simply radiographic or ultrasonic evidence of continued blood flow in the aneurysm sac following placement of an endovascular stent graft. Since the primary objective of any treatment of aortic aneurysms is to prevent rupture and death from rupture, we sought to determine whether the presence or absence of endoleak following endovascular repair is a determinant or predictor of subsequent clinical outcome. We compared patients with and without endoleak as determined by postprocedure contrast computed tomography (CT) scan with respect to three primary outcome measures— death, aneurysm rupture, and conversion to open surgical repair—and found that the presence or absence of endoleak does not predict the major adverse clinical events following endovascular repair (4).
