Study of Chest Pain Using Echocardiography

Abstract

Many patients evaluated for chest pain in the emergency department (ED) are admitted to the hospital needlessly because of the difficulty in differentiating noncardiac chest pain from myocardial ischemia. The objective of this study was to assess patients presenting to the emergency department with chest pain in Khartoum State in order to determine the nature of pain (cardiac or non-cardiac) and its associated factors. This cross sectional hospital based study carried out in Alshabb Teaching Hospital, Khartoum. Sixty two patients presenting with chest pain were evaluated to rule out myocardial ischemia. Rest echocardiography was performed in the ED. The data collected by questionnaire and analyzed by computer using SPSS. The study showed that Cardiac Patients were 41.9 % and non cardiac pain were 33,8% and others were 24% who need more investigation .The study showed that 50% of patients were from outside Khartoum state (migrant cases).The causes of seeking treatment in Khartoum included mainly lack of trained health care, and lack of equipment and drugs The use of echocardiography in the evaluation of patients presenting with chest pain may improve screening for those who can be safely released from the ED and rapid, evaluation of patients presenting with chest pain.