Bishop Warrick, Girao Gary
Calvary Cardiac Centre, Calvary Health Care Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.
Department of Medicine, Royal Hobart Hospital, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.
Intern Med J. 2017 Jun;47(6):698-701. doi: 10.1111/imj.13443.
A strategy that discharges chest pain patients with negative high-sensitivity troponin and non-ischaemic electrocardiography changes may still result in 0.44% of patients experiencing myocardial infarction within 30 days. We observed that a pragmatic approach that systematically discharged 25 patients on cardio-protective medications of aspirin, metoprolol and atorvastatin followed with prompt (<10 days) coronary computed tomography angiography resulted in no major adverse cardiac event and adverse drug reaction 30 days post-presentation. The strategy resulted in three patients (12%) ultimately diagnosed with likely unstable angina, which required planned coronary intervention in two patients and medical management in one patient. No unplanned readmissions for chest pains were noted from initial presentation through to 6-month follow up.