Bloodless aortic dissection.

"Bloodless aortic dissection" is a rare cause of sudden death due to an aortic dissection without intimal tears and with no blood present within the dissected aortic wall. The first case was described in 1993. Death was considered to be caused by acute myocardial ischemia from dissection involving the left coronary artery. Further cases have been described where death was thought to originate from increasing hypertension during progressive extension of the dissection followed by a sudden irritation of the subendothelially localized conduction system of the heart. The presented case involves a rapidly fatal aortic dissection in a 64 year old man without any intimal tears and no blood in the dissected aortic wall, although the dissection involved the entire aorta. Death was considered due to myocardial ischemia since the dissection had reached the aortic root and the origins of the coronary arteries.