| Don't Gamble, Get Screened
Washington Hospital to Host Free
Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Screening
Tri-City Voice, October 14, 2009
A patient arrives in the emergency
room with a swollen, painful abdomen and
suffering from shock. Frantic family
members tell medical staff that the
person was in good health, but soon a
computed tomography (CT) scan shows the
patient has suffered a ruptured
abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA).
In most instances, the prognosis for
a patient of this kind is not good. But
it doesn't have to happen this way.
On Saturday, Oct. 24, from 10 a.m. to
1 p.m., Washington Hospital will host a
free community screening sponsored by
Fremont Bank with a goal of finding
abdominal aortic aneurysms before they
rupture and become deadly.
Unlike some other serious health
conditions, which may have significant
warning signs, AAA often has none.
"An abdominal aortic aneurysm is a
silent killer," says Dr. Ash Jain,
cardiologist and medical director of
Washington Hospital's Stroke Program -
one of the two physicians interpreting
results at the upcoming screening. "Most
of the time the condition goes
undiagnosed, and the first occurrence
could be fatal. This is why it's
important to screen before a rupture
occurs."
Dr. John Thomas Mehigan, Chief of
Vascular Surgery and medical director of
Washington Hospital's Vascular Program,
has partnered with Dr. Jain to perform
the AAA screening at Washington Hospital
for almost a decade and points out that
most of these potentially fatal
aneurysms are found by accident.
The hard-to-reach position of the
artery that supplies blood to the
abdomen, pelvis, and legs, makes an
abdominal aortic aneurysm very difficult
to feel by routine examination, Dr.
Mehigan says.
"The best time to find an abdominal
aortic aneurysm is before it ruptures
rather than by accident, and that's why
we go out and do this screening every
year," he explains. "Over the course of
screening about 150 people, we usually
come up with 12, 13, even 14 people,
most with small aneurysms, and we want
to control their risk factors at this
point.
"This screening program originally
began after I operated on Morris Hyman,
the founder of Fremont Bank, because his
physician found an aneurysm on a back
X-ray. Morris and I got to be friends,
and he talked about how astonished he
was that there was this terrible thing
wrong with him and yet he had no idea.
He said, 'We will pay for a community
screening,' and every since Fremont Bank
has partially funded expenses for the
screening."
The question community members might
have is: How do you know you are at risk
for an aneurysm of this kind?
"The risk factors are high blood
pressure, mainly, as well as
atherosclerosis - or any risk factors
for heart disease - including diabetes,
high cholesterol, family history,
smoking and obesity," according to Dr.
Jain. "High blood pressure is the major
risk factor for AAA. Generally
participants of the screening should be
over 50 and have multiple risk factors."
The good news is that screening
itself is easy.
"We perform an ultrasound of the
stomach and look for the aneurysm," Dr.
Jain explains. "It takes about five
minutes to probe the area to find out if
the artery in question has weakened or
is bulging, which indicates an aneurysm.
It's a painless test and if you find an
aneurysm, anything less than five
centimeters we can treat effectively
with medications. In the case of an
aneurysm of more than five centimeters
in diameter, we will use stents to treat
it aggressively."
If you or a loved one has several
risk factors for AAA, there is every
reason to pre-register for the
screening, Dr. Mehigan says.
"I believe ours was the first program
in the country to do these screenings,
and today they are performed
nationwide," Dr. Mehigan states.
"Medicare now pays for a one-time
screening if you're over the age of 65
because the yield of AAA diagnoses is so
high when screened. We're pretty proud
of the program, and often we find other
health risks community members didn't
know they had to begin with.
"The only thing you have to do for
the screening is skip breakfast. There's
no waiting and everyone sees a physician
who will discuss the results for free.
After the screening, you get a little
snack and you're out of there."
Most importantly, Dr. Jain says the
screening can help diagnose an aneurysm
before it ruptures, easily preventing "a
disaster" before it happens.
Five-minute screening saves lives
If you think you or a family member
might have risk factors for an abdominal
aortic aneurysm, call (800) 963-7070 to
pre-register for the screening, which
will take place on Saturday, Oct. 24,
from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Conrad E.
Anderson, M.D. Auditorium located at
2500 Mowry Avenue in Fremont. Walk-ins
are not accepted. |
