Abdominal aortic aneurysms in a Middle-Eastern population: Prevalence, risk factors, and implications for targeted screening
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a potentially life-threatening condition that often remains undetected until rupture. Most prevalence and data concerning risk factors originate from Western countries; regional data from the Middle East are scarce. This study aimed to assess the prevalence of AAA and identify associated risk factors in a defined adult population in Saudi Arabia. Methods This prospective, single-center study was conducted in the vascular laboratory of a tertiary care center from January 2023 to January 2025. A total of 1125 patients aged ≥50 years were enrolled. All participants underwent abdominal ultrasound examination for AAA, defined as an aortic diameter of >29 mm. Demographic, clinical, and lifestyle data were collected. Statistical analyses included univariate and multivariate logistic regressions to identify predictors of AAA. Results AAA was detected in 19 participants, yielding a prevalence of 1.7%. The condition was significantly more frequent in men (2.6%) than in women (0.4%) (odds ratio [OR], 6.31; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.45-27.45; P < .001). Current smokers had an AAA prevalence of 6.5%, compared with 3.0% in ex-smokers and 0.5% in nonsmokers ( P < .001). Peripheral artery disease was independently associated with AAA (OR, 3.10; 95% CI, 1.14-8.42; P = .026). Statin use was inversely associated with AAA (OR, 0.36; 95% CI, 0.14-0.97; P = .043). No significant associations were found with hypertension, diabetes, or dyslipidemia. Conclusions AAA prevalence in this Saudi cohort was lower than in historical Western populations but comparable with recent global trends. Targeted screening of high-risk individuals, particularly older male smokers and patients with peripheral vascular disease, may be more effective than broad population screening in this region. Notably, the observed protective role of statins highlights the importance of comprehensive cardiovascular risk management.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".