It's a silent killer because there aren't any chronic symptoms. In many cases the person is found deceased and no autopsy is done to determine the cause. My wife dissected and survived because of extremely complex surgery after being airlifted to Houston. My son just had a graft installed proactively .
Speaking of John Ritter, his foundation provided funding that has been beneficial to our family personally and the discipline in general.
Echo and CT are the best way to look for aneurysms but a simple and relatively cheap calcium CT can also provide some preliminary info.
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Get your echocardiograms kids!
(Had mine a couple months ago. Aorta on the large side but otherwise A-OK!)