Ian Loftus (London, UK), president of the Vascular Society for Great Britain and Ireland, tells BLearning about the most recent developments in the UK’s NICE guidance on abdominal aortic aneurysm.
The draft version of the guideline created a furore, when released for consultation in 2018, with its recommendation that patients with an unruptured aneurysm should only be offered open surgery, if they were fit and able to undergo the procedure. Many surgeons, service providers and stakeholders have called the draft guideline “unimplementable” and its publication has been repeatedly deferred since then.
“The guideline now sits with the NICE Board,” says Loftus, who calls this step unprecedented. “There must be compromise on both sides and re-wording to make this guidance workable,” he says, noting that NICE is working closely with the stakeholders to progress the guideline.
