"Ma'am, please wait a moment," Liu Banxia called out to the patient's wife, who was about to follow. "We still need your signature."
"Okay, okay, Dr. Liu. What's wrong with Old Zhou? Didn't he just have a CT scan? Why does he need an enhanced one now? Can't he just have an MRI?" The patient's wife asked, her voice laced with anxiety.
"Please calm down and let me explain," Liu Banxia said. "According to my current assessment, Brother Zhou might have an aortic dissection."
"An aortic dissection means our blood vessel walls have multiple layers. In certain situations, if the inner lining, the intima, ruptures, blood can flow into the middle layer, the media, of the aorta. This can then cause a separation within that middle layer.
"To examine the blood vessels in detail, we need to perform an enhanced CT scan. This involves injecting a contrast agent, which contains iodine, into the bloodstream. Sometimes, this can cause an allergic reaction.
