Abstract
Acute aortic dissection requires an immediate accurate diagnosis, intensive care and surgery because it is a life-threatening disease. Six cases of acute aortic dissection that were diagnosed later are herein reviewed. Although all patients consulted the emergency room, four arrived by ambulance and two walked in during the night or on the weekend. Four patients complained of chest and/or back pain, while the other two complained of a transient loss of conscious or general fatigue, respectively. Two patients were hospitalized; one complaining of chest pain was suspected to have food poisoning, while another with conscious loss was suspected to have cerebral infarction. The other four patients went home without a definitive diagnosis because symptoms were ameliorated. The patient hospitalized with food poisoning went into shock 8 hours later, and was diagnosed with an aortic dissection by computed tomography. The other hospitalized patient was diagnosed by computed tomography on day 18. Two of the four patients who went home presented with cardiopulmonary arrest within two days. The remaining two patients consulted outpatient clinics the next day and were thus definitively diagnosed. It is important that we examine even the cases those symptoms and progress are atypical without excluding the aortic dissection.
