Lindsay Graham death and 'one of the biggest unanswered questions'
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Politics
Graham’s death from aortic dissection raises questions about preventing the rare disorder
Doctors don’t know whose aorta might be most likely to fail — and why
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Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) died from an aortic dissection, which are estimated to occur in 20,000 people in the U.S. every year, half of which are fatal.Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
By Elizabeth Cooney<br>July 15, 2026
Cardiovascular Disease Reporter
Elizabeth Cooney
[email protected]
Liz covers cardiovascular and metabolic disease, asking why we’re not doing better or even losing ground against the world’s leading killer. Send tips on Signal at LizC.22.
Sen. Lindsey Graham’s death Saturday at age 71 following an aortic dissection has focused attention on the life-threatening condition. Details about his diagnosis and treatment are not available while a final death certificate is pending, but experts agree on both how serious it is and how suddenly it erupts after a long prelude.
One cardiothoracic surgeon had questions about the South Carolina senator’s care.<br>Advertisement
“Somebody of his stature and age surely has had access to very high-level medical care. At some point he’s had an echocardiogram of the chest to look at the heart and some imaging study of the chest. If he hadn’t had any of those studies, I’d wonder why,” Mark Peterson, the system director of aortic surgery at NYU Langone Health, told STAT in an interview. “And if he did, did he have signs of a dilated or aneurysmal aorta that was either being monitored or was missed?”
Patients who come to his aorta clinic often say they’d had an echocardiogram a few years ago that showed a dilated aorta — a predictor of dissection — or the bulging vessel wall of an aneurysm, but nobody took it seriously or told them about it.
“I’d be very curious to know if he’s had some advanced imaging study of the chest and if so, what it showed and if it showed any signs of enlargement or dilatation or aneurysm, what was the recommendation based on his medical team?” Peterson said about Graham. “It’s all speculation now.”<br>Advertisement
Aortic dissection is abrupt, but it doesn’t come out of nowhere. When the body’s most important blood vessel tears from the inside, it’s a medical emergency that can be years in the making. More common as people reach their 50s and 60s, it’s rare after age 80. It occurs twice as often in men than women.
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What doctors don’t know is whose aorta might be most likely to fail — and why.
“This is one of the biggest unanswered questions in the field,” Joanna Chikwe, chair of cardiac surgery in the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai, told STAT in an email interview. “Improving risk prediction — by combining genetics, clinical factors, imaging, biomechanics, and potentially AI — is likely to be one of the major advances in preventing aortic dissection over the next decade.”
People diagnosed with atherosclerosis are vulnerable to sudden damage from high blood pressure hammering their arteries while fats, cholesterol, and calcium harden and narrow those vessels. Their weakened arteries widen, a warning sign that they might shear under pressure. Aortic diameter is an important predictor, Chikwe said, but it’s an imperfect surrogate for the underlying strength of the aortic wall.
Still, when imaging scans show an aorta is getting wider, patients are cautioned to limit any tension — like lifting weights — that could undermine the integrity of these important blood vessel walls that shred from the inside out.
Cardiologist Eric Topol, who is also director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, will never forget a patient who died outside his gym right after a workout. The man was considered at risk for an aortic dissection, based on...