2016 AHA/ACC Guideline on the Management of Patients With Lower Extremity Peripheral Artery Disease: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Clinical Practice Guidelines

. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Sep 21.

Published in final edited form as: Circulation. 2016 Nov 13;135(12):e726–e779. doi: 10.1161/CIR.0000000000000471


Recommendation for Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm

COR	LOE	Recommendation

IIa	B-NR	A screening duplex ultrasound for abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is reasonable in patients with symptomatic PAD.^127–129

See Online Data Supplement 8.		PAD has been recognized as a risk factor for AAA. In observational studies, the prevalence of AAA (aortic diameter ≥3 cm) was higher in patients with symptomatic PAD than in the general population^127,129 and in a population of patients with atherosclerotic risk factors.¹²⁸ The prevalence of AAA among patients with PAD increased with age, beginning in patients ≥55 years of age, and was highest in patients ≥75 years of age.¹²⁹ There are no data on AAA screening in patients with asymptomatic PAD. This recommendation refers to screening patients with symptomatic PAD for AAA regardless of patient age, sex, smoking history, or family history of AAA. Recommendations for screening the general population with risk factors for AAA (based on age, sex, smoking history, and family history) have been previously published.⁹