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Chest Pain Characteristics and Gender in the Early Diagnosis of Acute Myocardial Infarction

  • Ischemic Heart Disease (D Mukherjee, Section Editor)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Acute myocardial infarction is one of the leading causes of cardiovascular disease mortality in both men and women. Chest pain, which is often described as chest pressure, tightness, or a squeezing sensation, is the most frequent symptom in patients presenting with acute myocardial infarction. Although the diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction is often based on typical changes on a surface electrocardiogram and on changes in cardiac biomarkers, there is a need to better recognize and understand the impact of sex on symptoms among patients presenting with acute coronary syndrome or acute myocardial infarction. We briefly review the pathophysiology of ischemic symptoms, discuss potential mechanisms for variation in ischemic symptoms by sex, and summarize recent publications that have addressed sex differences in ischemic symptoms.

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Papers of particular interest, published recently, have been highlighted as: •• Of major importance

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Conflict of Interest

Garima Arora and Vera Bittner declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Cardiovascular Disease, Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 701 19th Street South, LHRB 310, Birmingham, AL, 35294, USA

    Garima Arora & Vera Bittner

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  1. Garima Arora
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  2. Vera Bittner
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Vera Bittner.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Ischemic Heart Disease

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Arora, G., Bittner, V. Chest Pain Characteristics and Gender in the Early Diagnosis of Acute Myocardial Infarction. Curr Cardiol Rep 17, 5 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11886-014-0557-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11886-014-0557-5

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