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.