Nearly Asymptomatic Eight-Month Thoracic Aortic Dissection

Abstract

Thoracic aortic dissection is a rare, but lethal, medical condition that is either misdiagnosed as a myocardial infarction or overlooked completely. Though thoracic aortic dissections are commonly diagnosed in patients exhibiting sharp chest pain, there are some notable cases where patients do not report the expected severity of pain. We report a unique case of a patient with a thoracic aortic dissection who was initially nearly asymptomatic for eight months, in order to heighten awareness, highlight diagnosis protocol, and improve prognosis for this commonly misdiagnosed, but fatal, condition.

Asymptomatic long‐segmental type A aortic dissection diagnosed by transthoracic echocardiography: A case report and literature review

“…We eliminated the articles about cases that were not completely asymptomatic (eg, patients who actually had mild symptoms or painless or insidious symptoms). [1][2][3] We finally took on 13 cases of asymptomatic AD (Table 1). [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] Their main features were as follows:…”

“…We searched for case reports of asymptomatic AD in PubMed and Web of Science, in English, using the following key words: asymptomatic, silent, painless, AD. We eliminated the articles about cases that were not completely asymptomatic (eg, patients who actually had mild symptoms or painless or insidious symptoms) 1‐3 . We finally took on 13 cases of asymptomatic AD (Table 1).…”

A Rare Case of an Ascending Aorta and Aortic Arch Aneurysm with an Aberrant Right Common Carotid Artery and a Proximal Descending Aortic Ectasia

“…Aneurysms are usually silent unless an imaging study happens to have been performed; thus, true incidence is hard to estimate. Lethal thoracic aortic dissections are also often misdiagnosed as myocardial infarctions [4]. A local study reported that ruptured aortic aneurysm has a higher mortality rate than myocardial infarction (MI) wherein 75 to 80 percent with ruptured aortic aneurysm die compared to 10 to 20 percent of people coming with MI.…”

A case report of asymptomatic long-segmental aortic dissection diagnosed by transthoracic echocardiography

“…Asymptomatic AD is extremely rare. It has been reported occasionally and was diagnosed mostly by transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) or contrast computed tomography (CT) [9][10][11][12] . We will discuss a case of long-segmental AD without any obvious symptom, with which, the patient presented to cardiovascular department complaining of exaggerated low diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and widened pulse pressure (PP) when measuring routine blood pressure (BP).…”