Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

SEPTEMBER 25, 2024

A healthy 45-year-old female presented with chest pain, with normal vitals. The patient was previously healthy, with no atherosclerotic risk factors, and developed chest pain after an episode of stress. The pain was crushing retrosternal, radiated to the arms and was associated with lightheadedness.

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

JUNE 19, 2024

Case An 82 year old man with a history of hypertension presented to the ED with chest pain at 1211. He described his chest pain as pleuritic and reported that it started the day prior while swinging a golf club. His pain suddenly became much worse in the ED and he became acutely diaphoretic, dizzy, and hypotensive.

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

APRIL 25, 2023

Healthy male under 25 years old with a pretty good story for acute onset crushing chest pain relieved with nitro. PEARL: Most patients who present with new chest pain + ECG changes + positive troponin — will not need Cardiac MRI. This was sent to me by a partner: "Curious what you think of this one we had overnight.

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

JANUARY 15, 2024

They had difficulty describing their symptoms, but complained of severe weakness, nausea, vomiting, headache, and chest pain. They described the chest pain as severe, crushing, and non-radiating. Altogether, this strongly suggests inferolateral OMI, particularly in a patient with acute chest pain.

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

JULY 7, 2024

Written by Jesse McLaren A previously healthy 60 year old developed exertional chest pain with diaphoresis, and called EMS. Here’s the EMS ECG, digitized with PM cardio. What do you think? There’s sinus arrhythmia with normal conduction, normal axis and normal voltages. There’s loss of R waves in V2-3 with hyperacute waves V1-5.

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

OCTOBER 24, 2019

[link] A 30 year-old woman was brought to the ED with chest pain. She had given birth a week ago, and she had similar chest pain during her labor. She attributed the chest pain to anxiety and stress, saying "I'm just an anxious person." JACC 2019 Sep 10;74(10):1290-1300.

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

MARCH 8, 2019

A previously healthy middle-aged male presented shortly after the acute onset of chest pain very shortly before calling 911. On arrival, he was pain free: What do you think? Jerry Jones commented: "Any ST depression on the ECG of a patient with chest pain credible for ACS represents a reciprocal change until proved otherwise."

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

MAY 11, 2019

male was sitting at a work conference when he began having substernal chest pain with diaphoresis. The pain was 7 out of 10 when this ECG was recorded: The QTc = 375 What do you think? In a patient with worrisome, new-onset chest pain — there is NO way that the T wave in lead V3 is normal.

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

MARCH 9, 2023

Sent by anonymous, written by Pendell Meyers A man in his 50s with no prior known medical history presented to the Emergency Department with severe intermittent chest pain. He denied any lightheadedness, shortness of breath, vomiting, or abdominal pain. Isn't it amazing?? Don’t Ignore Bedside Echo Results! —

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

JANUARY 17, 2023

A 60 year old with chest pain presented to the ED. In this case, lead I does not look bizarre, but all other leads do. == N OTE : The reasons I especially liked today's case are: i ) The patient presented with chest pain — so the importance of distinguishing artifact from reality can not be overstated! —

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

DECEMBER 10, 2019

This is a previously healthy male teenager who was awoken by chest pain. The pain is described as located in the midsternal area, radiating to the right arm, described as 8-9/10 and worse with deep inspirations. In the evening, he became diaphoretic and complained of 9/10 continuous chest pain.

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

MAY 6, 2019

The patient presented with chest pain. I was taught that the tell-tale sign of ischemia vs an electrical abnormality was in the hx, i.e. chest pain for the ischemia and potential syncope for brugada. The patient in question presented with new-onset chest pain — and was from South(east) Asia.

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

SEPTEMBER 27, 2019

An elderly woman presented with chest pain that radiated to the back for several hours. The first troponin returned at 0.099 ng/mL (elevated, consistent with Non-Occlusion MI) Providers were concerned with aortic dissection, so they order a chest aorta CT. Here is here initial ECG: There is only a nonspecific flat T-wave in aVL.

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

SEPTEMBER 30, 2019

Case written and submitted by Ryan Barnicle MD, with edits by Pendell Meyers While vacationing on one of the islands off the northeast coast, a healthy 70ish year old male presented to the island health center for an evaluation of chest pain. The chest pain started about one hour prior to arrival while bike riding.

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

JULY 11, 2019

Written and submitted by Ashley Mogul, with edits by Pendell Meyers and Steve Smith A man in his 40s with recent smoking cessation but otherwise no known past medical history presented due to chest pain since the previous evening. The pain has been constant and associated with vomiting and diaphoresis.

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

DECEMBER 16, 2019

A 50-something male who is healthy and active with no previous medical history presented with 5 hours of continuous worrisome chest pain. Chest pain with New LBBB: It helps to actually measure the ST/S ratio A Fascinating Demonstration of ST/S Ratio in LBBB and Resolving LAD Ischemia The cath lab was activated.

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

FEBRUARY 13, 2023

Written by Jesse McLaren Two 70 year olds had acute chest pain with nausea and shortness of breath, and called paramedics. Eur Heart J 2019 = Comment by K EN G RAUER, MD ( 2/13 /2023 ): = I love cases like this one! Who needs the cath lab? As a result — even subtle ECG findings need to be considered acute until proven otherwise.

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

NOVEMBER 1, 2022

Upon questioning patient, he denies having any chest pain or chest tightness of any sort. In the absence of chest pain and negative troponin , it appears less likely that he is having acute coronary syndrome though EKG appears concerning. Pericarditis would be even more unlikely in someone without chest pain.

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

APRIL 29, 2023

A 50-something with no previous cardiac history and no risk factors presented to the ED with acute chest pain (pressure) that radiated to the left arm. But even without these additional findings — the "Must Recognize" ECG pattern in this patient with new chest pain — is the unmistakeable shape of the ST depression in leads V2 and V3!

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

MAY 16, 2023

Sent by Dan Singer MD, written by Meyers, edits by Smith A man in his late 30s presented with acute chest pain and normal vitals except tachycardia at about 115 bpm. Dr. Singer sent this to me with just the information: "~40 year old with acute chest pain". Anxiety is a common cause of chest pain with tachycardia.

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

AUGUST 17, 2019

Chris Mondie of the Newark Beth Israel Emergency Medicine Residency sent this case A 50-something man presented with acute chest pain. Among the remarkable chest lead ECG findings include: As per Dr. Mondie — the T waves in leads V 2 and especially in V 3 “tower over” the respective R waves in these leads.

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

JULY 19, 2019

Written by Pendell Meyers, with edits by Steve Smith A man in his early 40s with history of MI s/p PCI presented with bilateral anterior chest pain described as burning and belching with no radiation since last night starting around 11pm (roughly 11 hours ago). The patient was still with ongoing chest pain at the time ECG #1 was done.

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

APRIL 22, 2022

Written by Jesse McLaren, with comments from Smith and Grauer A 60 year old presented with three weeks of intermittent non-exertional chest pain without associated symptoms. A prospective validation of the HEART score for chest pain patients at the emergency department. JAMA Intern Med 2019 9. Int J Cardiol 2013 2.

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

APRIL 22, 2019

He then went on to say: "40-something with chest pain for one hour. Burning pain subxiphoid and into throat." This is also true in lead III.) == Comment by K EN G RAUER, MD ( 4/22/2019 ): == I liked this case — because it provides unique insight on recognition of a subtle abnormality. Sounds like reflux, right?

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

SEPTEMBER 17, 2020

== MY Comment by K EN G RAUER, MD ( 9/17/2020 ): == Todays patient is a previously healthy, 60-something year-old woman who presented with chest pain that began at a reception. We are indebted to Dr. Smith for developing Modified Smith-Sgarbossa Criteria for assessing ST-T wave changes in chest pain patients with LBBB.

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

MAY 19, 2022

Written by Pendell Meyers, edits by Smith and Grauer A man in his late 20s with history of asthma presented to the ED with a transient episode of chest pain and shortness of breath after finishing a 4-mile run. His symptoms of chest pain and shortness of breath were attributed to an asthma exacerbation during exercise.

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Ken Grauer, MD

DECEMBER 8, 2023

For full discussion of this case — See ECG Blog #292 — == The 2 ECGs shown in Figure-1 were obtained from a man in his 30s — who presented to the ED ( E mergency D epartment ) with chest pain that began several hours earlier. ECG #2 was recorded 1 hour after ECG #1. Initial troponin was negative.

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

MARCH 31, 2023

It is from a 50-something with chest pain: What do you think? Up until recently — all computerized ECG interpretation programs that I am aware of used standard millimeter-based STEMI critieria as the basis for determining which chest pain patients should "qualify" for prompt cath with PCI. This was sent to me by a friend.

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

DECEMBER 18, 2019

A 40-something woman with h/o obesity, hyperlipidemia, smoking, as well as cocaine and alcohol abuse presented with intermittent chest pain for 2-3 weeks that became constant in the last day. I illustrate use of a Systematic Approach to ECG Interpretation in My Comment at the bottom of the June 28, 2019 SSmith Post ).

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

JANUARY 10, 2020

He presented to the ED because he developed sudden severe, sharp, pleuritic (but not positional), substernal and left mid to lower chest pain. Another similar case: Teenager with chest pain and slightly elevated troponin. 13, 2019 Dr. Smith post. 27, 2019 Dr. Smith post. What happens then? Pericarditis?

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Open Heart

AUGUST 25, 2024

Methods We prospectively included 1384 patients with LRHSs between March 2019 and March 2021. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the value of NISI in risk stratification and predicting cardiac events in patients with low-risk HEART scores (LRHSs).

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Ken Grauer, MD

FEBRUARY 3, 2024

As discussed in detail in ECG Blog #228 — this seemingly qualifies as a “ Silent ” MI ( Approximately half of those MIs not accompanied by CP — have some other associated symptom such as syncope, which substitutes as a “chest pain equivalent” ). A picture is worth 1,000 words. What is M INOCA? The November 15, 2023 post in Dr.

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All About Cardiovascular System and Disorders

APRIL 15, 2024

The main heart attack symptoms assessed by the study were: Chest pain or discomfort Shortness of breath Pain or discomfort in arms or shoulders Feeling weak, lightheaded, or faint Jaw, neck, or back pain Reference Mahajan S, Valero-Elizondo J, Khera R, Desai NR, Blankstein R, Blaha MJ, Virani SS, Kash BA, Zoghbi WA, Krumholz HM, Nasir K.

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Ken Grauer, MD

APRIL 5, 2024

For additional examples of this phenomenon whereby automatic truncation of an EMS ECG may mistakenly result in LVH serving to mimi c ischemia — Check out My Comment at the bottom of the page of the following posts in Dr. Smith's ECG Blog — the November 29, 2023 post — June 20, 2020 — March 31, 2019 — March 29, 2019 — and t he December 27, 2018 post.

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

OCTOBER 20, 2024

He woke up alert and with chest pain which he also had experienced intermittently over the previous few days. The history in today's case with sudden loss of consciousness followed by chest pain is very suggestive of ACS and type I ischemia as the cause of the ECG changes. What do you think?

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Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

OCTOBER 10, 2024

Written by Pendell Meyers A man in his early sixties with no significant medical history (including a "negative cardiac workup a few years ago" for unclear indication) called 911 for acute chest pain constantly for the past 5 hours. However, this patient has active chest pain, and thus this this is inferior-posterior OMI. .:

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Ken Grauer, MD

APRIL 14, 2023

The ECG in Figure-1 was obtained from a 90-year old woman — who presented with a 2-to-3 day history of chest pain, that became worse on the day of admission. That said — the important point is her ongoing ( and increasing ) chest pain. C ASE F ollow- U p: The patient's chest pain was controlled.

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