Non-chest pain symptoms and likelihood of coronary occlusion in emergency department patients with ST segment elevation undergoing emergent coronary angiography.

OBJECTIVES: Patients presenting with suspected ST segment elevation myocardial infarction frequently have symptoms in addition to chest pain, including dyspnea, nausea or vomiting, diaphoresis, and lightheadedness or syncope. These symptoms are often regarded as supporting the diagnosis of infarction. We sought to determine the prevalence of the non-chest pain symptoms among patients who were confirmed as having a critically diseased coronary vessel as opposed to those with no angiographic culprit lesion. METHODS: Data from 1393 consecutive patients with ST segment elevation who underwent emergent coronary angiography were analyzed. Records were reviewed in detail for symptoms, ECG findings, prior history, angiographic findings, and in-hospital outcomes. RESULTS: Dyspnea was present in 50.8% of patients, nausea or vomiting in 36.5%, diaphoresis in 51.2%, and lightheadedness/syncope in 16.8%. On angiography, 1239 (88.9%) patients had a culprit lesion and 154 (11.1%) were found not to have a culprit. Only diaphoresis had a higher prevalence among the patients with, as compared with those without a culprit, with an odds ratio of 2.64 (P < 0.001). The highest occurrence of diaphoresis was among patients with a totally occluded artery, with an intermediate frequency among patients with a subtotal stenosis, and the lowest prevalence among those with no culprit. These findings were consistent regardless of ECG infarct location, affected vessel, patient age, or sex. Among the subset of patients who presented without chest discomfort, none of the symptoms were associated with the presence of a culprit. CONCLUSION: The presence of diaphoresis, but not dyspnea, nausea, or lightheadedness is associated with an increased likelihood that patients presenting with ST elevation will prove to have a culprit lesion. In patients who present with ST elevation but without chest discomfort, these symptoms should not be regarded as 'chest pain equivalents'. Further objective data among patients with angiographic confirmation of culprit lesion status is warranted.

Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection Presenting As ST-Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction.

Spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD) is a non-traumatic spontaneous separation of a coronary wall that can present as acute myocardial infarction. Pregnant females are already at a considerably higher risk of acute myocardial infarction when compared to non-pregnant women of child-bearing age, and dissection explains the majority of these cases. Here, we present a 36-year-old female at 36-weeks gestation who experienced ventricular fibrillation arrest after ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) secondary to spontaneous dissection of the left anterior descending (LAD) coronary artery.

Likelihood of myocardial infarction, revascularization and death following catheterization laboratory activation in patients with vs. without both chest pain and ST elevation.

BACKGROUND: Emergent cardiac catheterization laboratory activation (CCLA) for patients with suspected ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) is employed to expedite acute revascularization (AR). The incidence of false-positive CCLA, in which AR is not performed, remains high. The combination of chest pain (CP) and electrocardiographic ST elevation (STE) are the hallmarks of STEMI. However, CCLA is sometimes initiated for patients lacking this combination. The study objective was to quantify the difference in likelihood of AR and mortality in patients with vs. without both CP and STE. METHODS: Retrospective analysis of 1621 consecutive patients for whom CCLA was initiated in a six-hospital network. We assessed the likelihood of acute myocardial infarction (AMI), presence of a culprit lesion (CL), performance of AR, and hospital mortality among patients with both CP and STE (+CP/+STE) compared with patients lacking one or both [non(CP/STE)]. RESULTS: 87.0% of patients presented with CP, 82.4% with STE, and 73.7% with both. Among +CP/+STE patients, AMI was confirmed in 90.4%, a CL in 88.9%, and AR performed in 83.1%. The corresponding values among non(CP/STE) patients were 35.8, 31.9, and 28.1%, respectively (P < 0.0001 for each). Nevertheless, mortality among non(CP/STE) patients was three-fold higher than in +CP/+STE patients (13.3% vs. 4.5%; P < 0.0001), with non-coronary deaths 24-fold more likely. CONCLUSION: Patients lacking the combination of CP and STE have a markedly lower likelihood of AMI and AR than +CP/+STE patients, but significantly higher mortality. Protocols aimed at rapid, focused evaluation of non(CP/STE) patients prior to CCLA are needed.

Recent Trends in Management and Inhospital Outcomes of Acute Myocardial Infarction in Renal Transplant Recipients.

Renal transplant recipients (RTR) are at high risk of cardiovascular events including acute myocardial infarction (AMI). We evaluated recent trends in AMI admissions in 9,243 RTR with functioning grafts using data from the 2003 to 2011 Nationwide Inpatient Sample database. Findings were compared with those of patients with end-stage renal disease without transplantation (ESRD-NRT, n = 160,932) and those without advanced kidney disease (non-ESRD/RT, n = 5,640,851) admitted with AMI. RTR comprised 0.2% of AMI admissions with increasing numbers during the study period (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 1.04; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.04 to 1.05; ptrend <0.001). Overall, 29.3% of admissions in RTR were for acute ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). Compared with non-ESRD/RT, history of renal transplantation was independently associated with a decreased likelihood of STEMI at presentation (aOR 0.73; 95% CI 0.65 to 0.80; p <0.001). Inhospital mortality among RTR admitted for NSTEMI decreased from 3.8% in 2003 to 2.1% in 2011 (aOR 0.85; 95% CI 0.78 to 0.93; p <0.001), whereas that for STEMI remained unchanged (7.6% in 2003; 9.3% in 2011, aOR 0.97; 95% CI 0.90 to 1.03; p = 0.36). Rates of percutaneous coronary interventions were higher, and inhospital mortality was lower among RTR compared with ESRD-NRT (p <0.001 for both). Treatment strategies appeared largely unchanged during the course of this study with the exception of an increase in primary percutaneous coronary intervention among RTR admitted with STEMI. In conclusion, RTR were frequently admitted with AMI, particularly NSTEMI, and were found to have multiple coronary artery disease risk factors despite their younger age. Compared with other forms of renal replacement therapy, renal transplant was associated with lower inhospital mortality.

Coronary Thrombosis without Dissection following Blunt Trauma.

Blunt trauma to the chest resulting in coronary thrombosis and ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) is a rare but well-described occurrence in adults. Angiography in such cases has generally disclosed complete epicardial coronary occlusion with thrombus, indistinguishable from the findings commonly found in spontaneous plaque rupture due to atherosclerotic disease. In all previously reported cases in which coronary interrogation with intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) was performed in association with acute revascularization, coronary artery dissection was implicated as the etiology of coronary thrombosis. We present the first case report of blunt trauma-associated coronary thrombosis without underlying atherosclerosis or coronary dissection, as documented by IVUS imaging.