Chest pain does not mean a patient should automatically be given heart tests, a new study finds.
Each year. millions of patients are seen in emergency departments for chest pain that suggests an impending heart attack, so Penn State Medical School researchers decided to look at whether or not they were truly at risk.
In the largest study on this topic to date, they evaluated data from the records of approximately 58 million privately insured people nationwide, which included 421,774 patients seen in emergency rooms for non-heart attack chest pain.
Of these, 293,788 patients received no further cardiac testing but 127,986 patients did undergo tests such as exercise electrocardiography, stress echocardiography, myocardial perfusion scanning, or coronary CT angiography.
There were no significant differences in hospitalizations for heart attack in any of the tested groups compared with the untested group at seven and 190 days, the researchers wrote in JAMA Internal Medicine.
However, those patients who underwent tests were more likely to undergo revascularization procedures such as stenting, the researchers found.
More research is needed to determine the best testing strategy when dealing with low-risk patients who are suffering chest pain, they said.
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