A SIMPLE blood test could help doctors spot potential deadly damage to the aorta, the body’s largest blood vessel, new research suggests.

Acute aortic syndrome (AAS) happens when the wall of the aorta tears and blood begins to flow between the layers of the blood vessel wall.

Patients with the condition need immediate treatment, which in the most severe cases could mean emergency surgery, to prevent the artery from rupturing and the patient potentially dying. However, diagnosing the disease in time is difficult as its symptoms can be attributed to other more common conditions. Now, research funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF), carried out by the universities of Dundee and Edinburgh, has found testing for a molecule called desmosine may speed up diagnosis.

The deadly disease affects around 3000 people in the UK every year.

Researchers compared blood concentrations of desmosine in 53 patients known to have AAS and 106 people without the disease.

People suffering from AAS had almost double the concentration of desmosine in their blood. The molecule levels were also associated with aortic growth which occurs when the aorta is damaged. The research presented at the British Cardiovascular Society conference suggests desmosine is released into the blood when the tissues within the wall of the aorta break down.

This signals that the aorta has been damaged and is at risk of expanding or bursting, the researchers believe.

Researchers hope to use these findings to explore whether a simple blood test for desmosine could speed up the diagnosis of AAS in hospital.

Maaz Syed, clinical research fellow at the BHF department for cardiovascular sciences, University of Edinburgh, said: “Right now, acute aortic syndrome is catastrophic.

“Diagnosis is difficult, and when it comes to treatment every second’s delay can prove fatal. We urgently need a new, faster way to diagnose this catastrophic disease so that we can get patients the swift, life-saving treatment that they need. We need to confirm these results in bigger trials, but we hope that we have a potential biomarker that may help us detect a dangerous disease.”