RSNA 2011: CT angiography considered successful triage tool for unexplained chest pain
Published
30 November 2011
| Article by Excerpta Medica
| Tags:
angiography,
ct,
emergency-department
RSNA 2011: CT angiography considered successful triage tool for unexplained chest pain
CT angiography, a powerful tool for visualizing atherosclerosis, is being used as a screening tool in an emergency room for low to medium risk patients who might otherwise be held for overnight observation. In an initial series of patients, the tool not only allowed immediate discharge of 75% of patients by demonstrating the absence of cardiovascular disease, it was able to diagnosis the actual source of chest pain, such as esophagitis or pneumonia, in about 10% of patients. While this tool is not considered appropriate in high risk patients, the author of the study predicted that CT angiography is expected to be highly cost effective in low to medium risk patients because it avoids an overnight hospital stay. It is notable that the investigators were not able to find a correlation between screening tools, such as TIMI or GRACE, and risk of significant disease on CT angiography.
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