ABSTRACT
Historical descriptions of aortic dissection date back several centuries. The death of the British King George II in 1760 from cardiac tamponade in the setting of a type A aortic dissection (TAAD) was documented in detail by his personal physician, Frank Nicholls. Rene Laennec, the inventor of the stethoscope, first used the term “dissecting aneurysm” in 1819. The first successful surgical repair of a dissecting thoracic aortic aneurysm was performed by DeBakey, Cooley, and Creech more than a century later, in 1954. This chapter provides an overview of the approach to patient management for both TAAD and uncomplicated and complicated type B aortic dissection (TBAD), with particular attention to technical details of surgical therapy.
