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Article: The Challenge of Evaluating the Patient With Chest Pain.
- Article from:
- Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine
- Article date:
- October 1, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 College of American Pathologists. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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It is estimated that patients with complaints of chest pain comprise close to 6 million emergency department visits annually in the United States, resulting in 2 million hospital admissions at a cost of approximately $8 billion.[1] Proper evaluation of the patient with acute chest pain is a resource-intensive and expensive process. Physicians face enormous challenges in the management of these patients. The 2 major acute coronary syndromes (ACSs) that are encountered are acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and unstable angina pectoris. However, most chest pain patients do not have an ACS,[2] and most patients who do have an ACS have not had an AMI. Still, approximately 1.5 ...