All Chest Pains Are Not Due To Heart Attack

Hyderabad: Not all cases of chest pain could be due to heart attack. They could also be due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). A study by Dr Aditya N Chada, fellow in pulmonary / critical care medicine with the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences, showed that lack of breath sounds could also be due to "tension pneumo-thorax," which could be caused by COPD.

Dr Chada says that careful bed-side examination of the patient is very important before sending them to electro-cardiography (ECG). He presented his researches at a conference of the Society of Critical Care Medicine last year and has been accepted for publication in the "Therapeutic Advances in Cardiovascular Disease delivers" of SAGE publications.

His findings help the chest pain patients in doing away with unnecessary clinical tests like cardiac catheterization and help in reducing unnecessary expenditure.