Türk Tıp Dergisi

Öz

Chest pain is one of the most frequent symptoms for which patients are evaluated in an emergency department. Chest pain is merely a symptom, not a diagnosis. Many medical problems can cause chest pain, and before the chest pain can be adequately treated, the actual underlying cause needs to be identified. The following is a list of the more common causes of chest pain, roughly in order of the frequency in which they are seen in the emergency room. Angina due to coronary artery disease, benign chest wall pain, anxiety or panic disorder, pneumonia, pleuritis, mitral valve prolapse, pericarditis, chest trauma, peptic ulcer, angina due to coronary artery spasm, angina due to cardiac syndrome X, aortic dissection. Some causes of chest pain require prompt medical attention, such as acute coronary syndromes tearing of the aorta, or pulmonary embolism. Because the cause of chest pain can range, from an ordinary, harmless muscle pull to serious cardiac complication ultimately leading to cardiac arrest. Coronary artery disease is so common and so dangerous that the symptom of chest pain should never be dismissed out of hand as being insignificant. Therefore, an accurate diagnosis is important in providing proper treatment to patients with chest pain. The diagnostic procedure in patients with acute chest pain should serve two major purpose: to quickly identify high risk patients quickly for the fast track and to delineate patients in whom there is little or no suspicion of a life-threatening disease. In this paper, the approach to chest pain was reviewed.