The condition is difficult to detect and may go unnoticed, because many patients have no specific symptoms. Diagnosis is further complicated by the fact that many patients with the injury experienced multiple other serious injuries as well, so the attention of hospital staff may be distracted from the possibility of aortic rupture. In fact most cases occur along with other injuries. A common symptom is unusually high blood pressure in the upper body and very low blood pressure in lower limbs. Another sign is kidney failure where the creatinine level shoots very high and urine output becomes negligible. In most cases, however, the doctors would misinterpret kidney failure as due to issues with the kidney itself and may recommend dialysis. Though not completely reliable, chest X-rays are the first-line investigation, initially used to diagnose this condition when the patient is unstable and cannot be sent to the CT bay. The preferred method of diagnosis used to be CT angiogram until it was found to cause complications in some people; now it is reserved for when CT scans are inconclusive. The classical findings on a chest X-ray will be widened mediastinum, apical cap, and displacement of the trachea, left main bronchus, or nasogastric tube. A normal chest x-ray does not exclude transection, but will diagnose conditions such as pneumothorax or hydrothorax. The aorta may also be torn at the point where it is connected to the heart. The aorta may be completely torn away from the heart, but patients with such injuries rarely survive very long after the injury; thus it is much more common for hospital staff to treat patients with partially torn aortas. When the aorta is partially torn, it may form a "pseudoaneurysm". In patients who do live long enough to be seen in a hospital, a majority have only a partially torn blood vessel, with the outermost adventitial layer still intact. In some of these patients, the adventitia and nearby structures within the chest may serve to prevent severe bleeding. After trauma, the aorta can be assessed by a CT angiogram or a direct angiogram, in which contrast is introduced into the aorta via a catheter.
Traumatic aortic rupture
Aortic rupture
Thoracic aorta injury
Acute aortic syndrome
Diaphragmatic rupture
Aortic dissection
Pulmonary hematoma
Myocardial rupture