Accurate screening for abdominal aortic aneurysm

In Birmingham a screening programme has been set up to detect abdominal aortic aneurysm in the male population between the ages of 65 and 75 years. The men to be screened are invited to their own general practitioners surgery and offered an abdominal ultrasound. The accuracy with which abnormalities can be detected is of crucial importance to a screening programme. Repeatability has been assessed for the single operator involved and is found to be +or-1.3 mm. The accuracy of a single scan has been calculated by comparison with the measured diameter from a CT scan of the patient, taken subsequently. This comparison indicates that 95% of the differences between the two measurements can be expected to be less than 3.5 mm.