Evidence-based On-call

internal medicine

Aortic dissection

Prevalence
Clinical features
Differential diagnosis
Investigations
Therapy
Prevention
Prognosis

Therapy

Consider medical therapy (long-term antihypertensive therapy) for patients with:

acute or chronic dissection of descending aorta ^d

Why?

Patients who receive medical therapy are not clearly more likely to die than those who receive surgery ^d

Expiry date: August 2004
Levels of Evidence used in grading these guides

Author	CM Ball
Reviewer	M Briggs
CAT Writers	CM Ball , CJ Wotton