Common gene variant associated with aortic dissection

Richard Holbrooke, John Ritter, Lucille Ball, Jonathan Larson and Great Britain’s King George II were all taken by the same silent killer: an acute aortic dissection.

Now, scientists led by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) have found an association with a common genetic variant in the population that predisposes people to acute dissections and can approximately double a person’s chances of having the disease.