Amy Yasbeck has revealed that screening after John Ritter's death led to the discovery of an aortic aneurysm in his brother Tom, in the same part of the artery affected by the actor's fatal dissection. Tom underwent life-saving surgery.

Yasbeck, 64, made the disclosure on Monday at An Evening From the Heart, a fundraiser at Joe's Pub in New York.

The event, organised by the John Ritter Foundation for Aortic Health, launched celebrations ahead of the sitcom's 50th anniversary next March. She urged relatives of anyone affected by thoracic aortic dissection to seek heart imaging, including echocardiograms.

'I guarantee you, there are people here who don't even realise they're at risk for aortic dissection, or that maybe somebody in their family had died from it, because it's highly genetic,' she told the audience.

Ritter, who played Jack Tripper in Three's Company from 1977 to 1984, died on 11 September 2003, aged 54.

He fell ill while rehearsing for 8 Simple Rules on a studio lot in Burbank, California, and was taken to hospital, where he was initially treated for a suspected heart attack. He was later found to have a thoracic aortic dissection, a tear in the inner lining of the aorta, the body's main artery.

A Family Pattern Emerges in John Ritter Aortic Cases

Yasbeck said the family now believes the condition runs through the Ritter line. Ritter's father, the country singer and film star Tex Ritter, died in 1974, aged 68, in what was then put down to a heart attack.

'Their father was a singing cowboy named Tex Ritter, and he died suddenly of what was, in those days, deemed to be and assumed to be a heart attack. But now we know it was most likely, for sure, an aortic dissection,' she said.

Four years after John's death, Tom Ritter underwent cardiac imaging to check for aortic problems. The scans found an aneurysm in the ascending part of his aorta, almost exactly where John's had failed, Yasbeck said.

An aneurysm is an abnormal bulge in the artery wall that can increase the risk of aortic dissection or rupture. Tom had major surgery and survived.

'Then it was like, "Okay, this is on. This is genetic",' she recalled.

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John Ritter Aortic Tragedy Fuels Calls for Wider Screening

Yasbeck said deaths from aortic dissection are often miscounted, which has made the condition look rarer than it is.

'When someone dies of an aortic dissection and they're not under a physician's care or don't have an autopsy, it goes into the quote-unquote cardiac category,' she said.

She said that the perception of rarity has meant less research and fewer imaging tools. That, she said, is beginning to change.

'There's definitely a pre-John Ritter awareness and a post-John Ritter awareness,' she said.

Dissections can cause chest or back pain, shortness of breath or collapse, symptoms that can resemble a heart attack.

Yasbeck singled out echocardiograms, a non-invasive ultrasound that can show the size and shape of the aorta and detect aneurysms before they rupture. CT angiograms can also help, she said, but getting a referral remains inconsistent.

Medical guidelines recommend aortic imaging for first-degree relatives of people diagnosed with thoracic aortic disease, including aortic dissection. Genetic counselling and testing may also be recommended when family history or other risk factors suggest an inherited condition.

Yasbeck set up the foundation in 2003. It funds research and education on thoracic aortic disease and promotes the 'Ritter Rules', plain-language warning signs intended to help patients and doctors recognise a dissection sooner.

'[If] one person finds out their risk, an entire family can be saved from the heartache that we went through,' she told the crowd.

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