Acute aortic dissection is the most common life-threatening disorder affecting the aorta. The month of September is Thoracic Aortic Aneurysm and Dissection Awareness Month (TAADAM) since the year of 2005. A month when survivors and friends and family to them who lives with, or passed from aortic dissection, spreads awareness in different ways. In Europe the first patient driven initiative was founded by seventeen survivors in 2014.

Aortic Dissection is a very rare disease. About 30 persons out of a population of one million (1.000.000) get ill every year. It is said that about 80% of them dies within short after having fallen ill. Either immidiatley if the Aorta ruptures before they get into hospital, or from the same cause, while doctors in the ER are trying to find the proper diagnose. So the survivors of this lethal rare disease are very very few. This is one reason there are no offical patient association like there is for other a little bit more common (but still rare) diseases like Marfans Syndrome.