Vetrhus M, et al. - Researchers examined the characteristics, stratification and time to death of patients admitted to hospital, but not undergoing operation for ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysms (rAAA) in a retrospective, single-center study of all patients admitted to Stavanger University Hospital from the primary catchment area with rAAA on admission or in-hospital from 2000 to 2014. They identified 214 patients with rAAA; of these 57 (27%) patients did not undergo surgery. Significantly higher proportion of women comprised the patients who did not undergo surgery. Non-operative treatment was uniformly fatal. A decision of not performing operation was made by the consultant vascular surgeon or the patient himself in nearly half of patients. It seems that an earlier diagnosis might have altered the outcome in the subgroup of patients not diagnosed until autopsy or having an in-hospital rupture.