Women who smoke have a significantly higher risk of suffering a potentially fatal rupture of the aorta, the main artery carrying blood from the heart, a national women's study reveals.

The Women's Health Initiative, launched in 1991, is the first to report the risks of abdominal aortic aneurysm in women, said J. David Curb, principal investigator in Hawaii for the study, which included 3,600 isle participants.

Most studies are too small to discover such a finding, but the landmark women's research program encompassed nearly 162,000 generally healthy post-menopausal women at 40 clinical centers, said Curb, University of Hawaii geriatrics professor and Pacific Health Research Institute researcher.

“;It allowed us to have sufficient numbers to look at things like this not commonly diagnosed,”; Curb said.

Dr. Frank Lederle, internist at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Minneapolis and a University of Minnesota professor of medicine, led an analysis that found female smokers are eight times more likely than nonsmokers to have an abdominal aortic aneurysm or require surgery to repair weakening that can cause a rupture.

About 15,000 Americans die each year when an abdominal aortic aneurysm ruptures and 40 percent are women, the analysis said.

Older women and those with high blood pressure are at risk for undiagnosed aneurysms, as well as those who smoke, Curb said. In view of the new findings, women in these groups should be examined more closely for an undiagnosed aneurysm, he added.