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The pilot was set up in preparation for the launch of the national
screening programme in 2008.

Seventy-one per cent of people, from a total of 254 who were invited for
screening, attended the study in Gateshead.

Lead researcher Mr Hamdi Ashour, a consultant vascular surgeon from the
Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead, said that the study had helped to
detect a number of aneurysms in high-risk individuals, which may have
been left untreated.

'This is an indicator that routine screening would be of huge benefit to
the region,' he said.

The pilot study will continue until late 2007.