Serve and surgery: type A acute aortic dissection CT imaging resembling a tennis ball.

摘要

A 48-year-old man was admitted to the emergency room of our hospital, with stabbing thoracic and interscapulo-vertebral pain starting 3 h prior to admission. The patient was on atenolol, 50 mg daily for hypertension.The physical findings were unremarkable and no reduced or absent peripheral pulses were detected. The ECG demonstrated a hypertrophy pattern and no prior ECG tracing was available for comparison. Eventually, the patient experienced migration of pain to the epigastric and mesogastric regions. These signs and symptoms led to the suspicion of an acute aortic dissection and, therefore, a contrast-enhanced thoraco-abdominal computed tomography (CT) scan was performed, showing an inti-mal flap starting from the aortic root and extending down to the iliac bifurcation (Fig. la). The patient was sent to a tertiary care hospital with a heart surgery facility.