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Paging Dr. Gupta: John Ritter Dies

Aired September 12, 2003 - 10:42   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Those of our viewers who are just joining us on the West Coast are probably waking up in shock to find out that John Ritter has died. He just six days short of his 55th birthday. He was in rehearsal for the same sitcom yesterday in Southern California when he collapsed on the set. He was taken to the hospital in Santa Monica where he died about 10:00 p.m. As I said, John Ritter not even 55 years old, much beloved television personality. His publicist is saying he had something called a tear in his aorta, not a heart attack.
We have our Dr. Sanjay Gupta standing by in New York to help us understand a little bit more about that.

Sanjay, what's the difference?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the aorta actually is the largest blood vessel that leads the heart. It's in the same region as the heart actually. It extends from the heart through the chest and into the abdomen as well. So it's in that same region, but it's different than the heart. At this point, it really probably makes no difference.

But when you think of a heart attack, you're actually thinking of a problem with the heart itself. This, in fact, was a problem with a blood vessel. I think we might have some pictures of what that looks like. Take a look there. The blood vessel in blue there, Daryn, that's the blood vessel that's leaving the heart. It extends from the chest and into the abdomen.

If you can take a look at that now in cross sections. What happens with an aortic dissection is that you actually get blood sort of in the layers of the wall of the aorta, if you will. That's not where it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be sort of in the main tube going and doing its job, which is to provide blood to the rest of the body. It obviously can't do that.

Daryn, just a couple of quick things about aortic dissection. Usually, it usually does affect men, usually men between 40 and 70 years old. It typically can present, just like a heart attack, sudden chest pain. About half the people who get this die very suddenly, and the other half, half of those people, have significant problems afterwards. So this is a very serious problem -- Daryn.

KAGAN: When you talk about an undetected flaw, or undetected problem, is it something you wouldn't know until you're in very serious trouble that you have it? GUPTA: That's right. A lot of times the way you find out that you had an aortic dissection is, unfortunately, from exactly what happened to Mr. Ritter, you know, just a significant bleeding of some sort. If someone survives that, they can obviously fix it at that time, but only half the people actually do survive that. Sometimes these can be congenital, you know, obviously meaning you were born with some sort of problem like this, and it only declares itself at some point in life. Usually, it worsened because of hypertension, because of atherosclerosis, and, Daryn, as you know, those are the same things that are worse in heart disease as well. So very similar in terms of those risk factors -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired September 12, 2003 - 10:42   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Those of our viewers who are just joining us on the West Coast are probably waking up in shock to find out that John Ritter has died. He just six days short of his 55th birthday. He was in rehearsal for the same sitcom yesterday in Southern California when he collapsed on the set. He was taken to the hospital in Santa Monica where he died about 10:00 p.m. As I said, John Ritter not even 55 years old, much beloved television personality. His publicist is saying he had something called a tear in his aorta, not a heart attack.
We have our Dr. Sanjay Gupta standing by in New York to help us understand a little bit more about that.

Sanjay, what's the difference?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the aorta actually is the largest blood vessel that leads the heart. It's in the same region as the heart actually. It extends from the heart through the chest and into the abdomen as well. So it's in that same region, but it's different than the heart. At this point, it really probably makes no difference.

But when you think of a heart attack, you're actually thinking of a problem with the heart itself. This, in fact, was a problem with a blood vessel. I think we might have some pictures of what that looks like. Take a look there. The blood vessel in blue there, Daryn, that's the blood vessel that's leaving the heart. It extends from the chest and into the abdomen.

If you can take a look at that now in cross sections. What happens with an aortic dissection is that you actually get blood sort of in the layers of the wall of the aorta, if you will. That's not where it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be sort of in the main tube going and doing its job, which is to provide blood to the rest of the body. It obviously can't do that.

Daryn, just a couple of quick things about aortic dissection. Usually, it usually does affect men, usually men between 40 and 70 years old. It typically can present, just like a heart attack, sudden chest pain. About half the people who get this die very suddenly, and the other half, half of those people, have significant problems afterwards. So this is a very serious problem -- Daryn.

KAGAN: When you talk about an undetected flaw, or undetected problem, is it something you wouldn't know until you're in very serious trouble that you have it? GUPTA: That's right. A lot of times the way you find out that you had an aortic dissection is, unfortunately, from exactly what happened to Mr. Ritter, you know, just a significant bleeding of some sort. If someone survives that, they can obviously fix it at that time, but only half the people actually do survive that. Sometimes these can be congenital, you know, obviously meaning you were born with some sort of problem like this, and it only declares itself at some point in life. Usually, it worsened because of hypertension, because of atherosclerosis, and, Daryn, as you know, those are the same things that are worse in heart disease as well. So very similar in terms of those risk factors -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com