The clinical data of 361 patients aged from 16-77 y with aortic dissection (AD) admitted from January 2003 to June 2008, including 273 males and 88 females, were retrospectively reviewed. The symptoms and physical signs of the AD were diverse, major clinical manifestation was pain (87.8%) and the painless diseases were seen in 12.2% of cases. The misdiagnosis occurred in 51 patients (14.1%), including 43 male patients and 8 females, aged from 25-77 y before admission; 45 painful cases (88.2%) were misdiagnosed as acute coronary syndrome, acute pancreatitis, acute cholecystitis and cholelithiasis and 6 painless patients (11.8%) were misdiagnosed as pulmonary infection and congestive heart failure. The data indicate that AD may demonstrate diverse manifestations and severity leading to misdiagnosis and the symptom of pericardial effusion is helpful for accurate diagnosis.

Aortic aneurysm; Diagnositic errors