Presenting symptoms — chest pain

Abstract

Patients will describe a wide variety of chest pains in the consulting room or surgery and of the symptoms with which a doctor may be confronted, chest pain is one of the most important to assess. The possible implications of chest pains are obvious but it must be remembered when dealing with the symptom, that uppermost in the patient’s mind is whether the pain may signify either coronary artery disease or lung cancer. The former condition should be to the fore of the doctor’s thoughts and it is with this in mind that the types of chest pain are considered in this chapter in an attempt to aid the diagnosis or exclusion of coronary artery disease as a cause of pain. A few minutes of careful questioning by the doctor will determine in most cases the nature of the pain and an opinion may be formed as to whether or not it is cardiac pain.