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Comment by pfdietz | Hacker News Reader

He had an aortic dissection in 2014. They repaired that (and put in a new heart valve) but apparently there was a complication, a "false lumen". This (as I understand it) is a sack of low circulation velocity in the artery where blood can clot. And apparently here it released into the arterial flow during surgery a week ago (in a desperate attempt to repair it?) and caused massive embolism across his brain.

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Perhaps I’m morbid, or just interested in medicine, but I really appreciate when some detail about the cause of death is provided in an obituary. Not only is it a useful memento mori, but it also reflects the conscientious planning by the author.

You're not morbid. In the case here, let's just note that many famous people haved died as a result of aortic dissection (immediately or not). It's worth knowing how common it is so it can be avoided or detected. Keeping your blood pressure under control helps reduce its incidence, for example.

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.121.0...

"Ideal blood pressure targets to reduce risk of aortic dissection may be even lower than the threshold of hypertension."

The false lumen is the path of flow that isn’t the true lumen. The true lumen existed prior to the dissection.

Blood tends to clot at lower velocity.

I had an ascending aortic dissection in 2009, so this his different, I guess.

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