Lay summary
Aortic dissection is a life-threatening emergency involving a rip in the major artery of the body, which has an extremely high mortality (> 90%). It is hard to diagnose and it is hard to detect unless you do a specialized CT scan. Many patients get these scans unnecessarily as their doctors cannot completely exclude a dissection otherwise; however, the scans come with increased risk of cancer, severe allergy and kidney damage. Some international studies have suggested using a scoring system and blood test (D dimer) instead of the scan in some low-risk patients. We are analyzing the patients who present to Canterbury DHB with this condition to determine if this is a safe system to use to rule out aortic dissection. We will review the charts of all patients with this condition over the past 10 years, then do some statistical tests and publish the results.