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In an environment in which patients with large and rapidly expanding aneurysms are usually referred for surgical treatment, older patients with chronic type B dissections, especially if they have uncontrolled hypertension and a history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, are significantly more likely to have rupture than are younger, normotensive patients without lung disease. Neither the presence of a persistently patent false lumen nor a large abdominal aortic diameter appears to increase the risk of rupture. Overall, our nondimensional data strikingly resemble the natural history of patients with nondissecting aneurysms, suggesting that calculations derived from data on chronic descending thoracic and thoracoabdominal aneurysms would provide an overly conservative individual estimate of rupture risk for patients with chronic type B dissection, who tend toward earlier rupture of smaller aneurysms. A more aggressive surgical approach toward treatment of patients with chronic type B dissection seems warranted.

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