Femoral anastomotic aneurysms: pathogenic factors, clinical presentations and treatment. A study of 142 cases

Abstract

In this study, the files of 112 patients with a total of 142 femoral anastomotic aneurysms were reviewed. Eighty-five patients (76%) were initially operated upon for obstructive aorto-iliac disease, while the remaining 27 (24%) had abdominal aortic aneurysms repaired. The majority of the patients (104/112) were male and their mean age was 64.5 years (range 45–88). Ninety-three per cent of the subjects were smokers prior to the first operation and 43% continued to smoke at the time of their femoral anastomotic aneurysms operation. The mean delay between the initial surgery and the repair of the femoral anastomotic aneurysms was 74.5 months (range 1–228). The diagnosis was made because of a painless pulsatile mass (91/142), acute leg ischaemia (27/142), a painful pulsatile mass (12/142), haemorrhage (10/142), pseudo-post-phlebitic oedema (1/142) and microemboli of the toes (1/142). The operative mortality was 2.7% (3/112) of which two-thirds were patients with infected grafts. Two subgroups were distinguished: 10 patients with an infected femoral anastomotic aneurysm and 12 patients with recurrent femoral anastomotic aneurysms, 11 with a single recurrence and one with a double recurrence. In the infected group, the time to development of anastomotic aneurysm was shorter than for the group with non-infected femoral anastomotic aneurysms (41 versus 74.5 months) and the operative mortality was 20% (2/10). One patient developed a recurrent femoral anastomotic aneurysm and another was lost to follow-up. Two subsequent deaths occurred, which were unrelated to the femoral anastomotic aneurysms. In the group of recurrent femoral anastomotic aneurysms one patient was lost to follow-up and two patients died, but not as a result of recurrent femoral anastomotic aneurysms. A total of 122 cases underwent interposition of a new prosthetic segment between the proximal prosthesis and the distal artery (89 at the common femoral, 21 at the femoral profundis, eight at the superficial femoral and four at an existing femoro-popliteal graft).