The aorta is the main blood vessel in the body. The artery that transports the freshly oxygenated blood from the heart to the organs of the body. The aorta is like a tube. The wall of this artery (tube) consits of three layers. An inner layer, a middle layer and an outer layer.
Aortic Dissection is when the inner layer in the aortic wall breaks, and blood pushes its way into the cavity that forms between in inner and outer layer in the aortic wall, and starts forming a new passage for the blood, parallell to the normal bloodflow in the aorta.
Wehen this happens the aorta starts to swell. If it sweels to much, the outer wall will also break down, and the patient will bleed to death quite fast.
Complications from aortic dissection can cause the bloodflow to be disturbed to organs of the body, and this can cause dangerous or deadly conditions due to the dissection.