Abdominal aortic aneurysm abdominal x ray

Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]; Associate Editor(s)-in-Chief: Hardik Patel, M.D.

Plain abdominal radiographs are obtained in patients complaining of abdominal pain and used for the initial diagnosis of an AAA. Because of the high proportion of patients with aortic wall calcification, however, it is often difficult to further evaluate an AAA using a plain radiograph. Plain radiographs are useful, however, when an aneurysmal aorta appears normal on an angiogram due to a thrombus within the sac.

Aortic wall calcification has been shown in the radiograph below:

Faint outline of the calcified wall of an AAA

Copyleft image obtained courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RupturedAAAXray.png; James Heilman, MD.

CME Category::Cardiology