Abstract
Chest pain is one of the most common presentations that clinicians are called upon to evaluate on an urgent basis in the office, clinic, or emergency department (ED). The CDC recorded 6.4 million visits to the ED for chest pain in 2006 1. Some of the challenges in the evaluation of chest pain include the broad spectrum of potential etiologies for chest pain, limited availability of definitive diagnostic modalities, and the potentially lethal consequences of serious conditions when not recognized early. Even when armed with all the tools of a full-service ED, often a definitive diagnosis cannot be arrived at. Instead, clinicians are forced to rely on the power of exclusion to discern if there is a threat to life and to decide how best to manage uncertain risks.
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Kosowsky, J.M., Huang, C. (2011). Evaluation of Chest Pain and Myocardial Ischemia. In: Toth, P., Cannon, C. (eds) Comprehensive Cardiovascular Medicine in the Primary Care Setting. Contemporary Cardiology. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60327-963-5_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60327-963-5_9
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