When do I need surgery?

When you need surgery for your aorta, it will be for two main reasons. Would be one, in the acute setting, when somebody shows up in the emergency department, they may need surgery on that date, depends on the anatomy and the symptoms and what is being compromised. If you survive the hospital course without an operation, you may need an operation down the line. You may or may not need an operation down the line, depending on how the aorta evolves. If they form an aneurysm, meaning dilation of the aorta after the dissection, or if somebody develops another acute episode of complication that involve, for instance, rupture of the aorta or involvement of new sites within the aorta itself.