Surgery for aortic dissection was first introduced and developed by Michael E. DeBakey, Denton Cooley and Oscar Creech, cardiac surgeons associated with the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas in 1954.
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The earliest fully documented case of aortic dissection is attributed to Frank Nicholls in his autopsy report of King George II of Great Britain, who had been found dead on 25 October 1760; the report describes dissection of the aortic arch and into the pericardium.
Instead, Flo Hyman's death was due to an aortic dissection resulting from previously undiagnosed Marfan syndrome, a relatively common genetic disorder that affects more than 1 in 5,000 people.