How Canadians have died from a torn aorta missed after ER visit

For emergency doctors, the fear of missing a potentially lethal diagnosis “fluctuates between healthy and practice-altering paranoia,” Calgary emergency doctors Eddy Lang and Niklas Bobrovitz recently wrote.

Aortic dissection — a tear in the body’s main artery — would qualify for the latter. Death can happen fast.

A new study documenting 43 cases of delayed or missed diagnoses of aortic dissection in Canadian emergency departments over a 10-year span that resulted in medical-legal action is highlighting how such a catastrophic medical emergency can be missed.

Thirty-six people died of their aortic dissection. Thirty were only diagnosed after their death. Forty per cent of missed dissection deaths occurred after the person was sent home from emergency — “perhaps the most feared outcome