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 happens when tears appear in the inner lining of the aorta, which is the main artery leaving the heart. Blood surges into the tears, causing the aorta lining to split, or dissect.

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 ...