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We thank Dr Lorenzi et al for the interest in our article and for the effort to compare their data with ours.

At variance with our data, in 125 patients Dr Lorenzi et al failed to find out a strong association between mild hyperhomocysteinemia and abdominal aortic aneurysm. This difference may stem from two main reasons: (1) the demographic characteristics were different, as we studied only males and the group of Dr Lorenzi investigated both sexes and (2) the cutoff for hyperhomocysteinemia was different. We considered hyperhomocysteinemic patients who had homocysteine plasma levels above the 95th percentile of control subjects, whereas they fixed a cutoff value for the control group at the 97.5th percentile.

Moreover, in their letter the age of the different groups of patients and of control subjects was not indicated, so a comparison between our data and those of Dr Lorenzi is difficult.

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