Acute aortic syndromes (AASs) are life-threatening cardiovascular emergencies affecting 5–15 individuals per 100,000 person-years [1]. They are characterized by dissection, hematoma, ulceration or rupture, within the thoracic or thoraco-abdominal aorta. Timely diagnosis of AASs in the Emergency Department (ED) is mostly based on computed tomography angiography (CTA) of the chest and abdomen. However, appropriate selection of patients for urgent CTA is challenging, due to conflicting risks of misdiagnosis and overtesting [2,3].
