INTRODUCTION A patient with chest contusion and rib fractures presented with severe chest pain. The plain film of his chest showed suspicion of pneumoperitoneum. We present this case to show how to get a correct diagnosis and then avoid unnecessary surgery. CASE PRESENTATION A 64-year-old Taiwanese man presented to the emergency department complaining of severe right chest pain after a traffi...

Myocardial infarction occurring in young people with angiographically normal coronary arteries is well described but the pathophysiology of this condition remains unknown. Coronary artery spasm in association with thrombus formation and minimal atheromatous disease or spontaneous coronary artery dissection are possible causes. Two young men presented with severe chest pain after acute alcohol i...

Kounis syndrome (KS) is induced by allergic and anaphylactic reaction, and is considered a rare cause of coronary artery spasm (1) A 44-year-old male patient was admitted to our center with complaint of severe chest pain lasting for 1 hour. He was administered treatment of 1 g intravenous ampicillin/sulbactam with diagnosis of upper respiratory tract infection. He did not have history of allerg...

This article describes a 28-yr-old black man with sickle cell anemia who presented with severe chest pain secondary to acute infarction of the body of the sternum, hypoventilation, and hypoxemia with no evidence of acute chest syndrome. A bone scan performed 5 days after admission revealed increased uptake in the sternum, suggesting sternal infarction. Repeat bone scan performed 2 mo later demo...

Penetrating aortic atherosclerotic ulcer is an underdiagnosed condition that presents high rates of morbidity and mortality. We report two cases of patients with severe chest pain, with no ischemic features, who underwent chest angiotomography and showed an ulceration of the aortic wall, with contrast penetration into the middle layer. Due to the failure of the medical treatment, the patients u...

A 79-year-old man was admitted to Samsung Changwon Hospital due to chest pain and dyspnea. The ejection fraction was 31% and mean pressure gradient between the left ventricle and aorta was 69.4 mmHg on echocardiography. Chest computed tomography showed severe calcification of the ascending aorta. Aortic valve replacement was successfully performed using a thoracic endovascular aortic repair bal...

BACKGROUND Acute chest pain is a frequently occurring symptom in patients with medical emergencies and imposes potentially life threatening situations outside hospitals. Little is known about the epidemiology of patients with acute chest pain in a primary care setting in Norway, and we aimed to obtain more representative data on such patients using data from emergency medical communication cent...