A numbers game: understanding normal standards.

sort of figure that surgical results must be balanced. While late surgery in a younger person must take account of the risks of rebleeding in the very long term,3 this is obviously not so in the elderly, whose mean expectation of life is in any case limited. It is not valid to compare the treatment of an aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage with that of a fractured hip, an intestinal obstruction, or a dissecting aneurysm in an old person. Patients with the latter conditions will die if left untreated. Most patients with a ruptured aneurysm who survive the first haemorrhage and the next few weeks will recover to resume a normal life without any surgical treatment.