What Is an Aortic Dissection? An aortic dissection is an emergency with your aorta, which is the largest blood vessel in your body and the main artery that takes blood from your heart to the rest of ...

An aortic dissection is a tear in one of the layers of the aorta. The aorta is your body’s largest blood vessel. Your aorta is made up of three layers. When a hole or tear forms in one of these layers ...

Figure 1: Aortic dissection is caused by bleeding within the aortic wall. The first 2 weeks after the onset of an aortic dissection is considered the acute stage, in which patients are highly ...