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	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

It is becoming increasingly well recognized that surgeon experience and patient factors may play an important role in predicting outcomes in such clinical scenarios as ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysms. Although it seems intuitive that surgeons with more experience would have better results, this has not been consistently shown with ruptured aneurysms.

A recent article¹ in the ARCHIVES describes the experience of a single surgeon with 101 patients with ruptured aneurysms during a 21-year period. Although the results were commendable, the authors failed to show improved results with increasing surgeon experience. Possible explanations include inequality of the patients in the time periods as compared with respect to hemodynamic stability and other clinical parameters.

In a similar study,² our group reviewed an individual surgeon's experience with ruptured aneurysm repair. In that article, we were able to demonstrate equality between the patients in the 2 periods compared with respect to patient factors that . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Thomas L. Forbes, MD, FRCSC
London, Ontario

Corresponding author: Antonio Toniato, MD, Patologia Speciale Chirurgica, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, University of Padua, School of Medicine, Policlinico Universitario, via Giustiniani 2, 35128 Padua, Italy (e-mail: giorgiolina@libero.it).