Pericarditis is inflammation of the sac around the heart. The pain is sharp, worse lying flat, better sitting forward, and alarming enough to mimic a heart attack. Here is what causes it and what the evidence supports.
Most cardiac emergencies build gradually. An aortic dissection does not. It arrives at full force in people who felt perfectly well moments earlier, and recognising the pain is what gets you to hospital in time.
Troponin is the blood test at the heart of chest pain assessment. If you have been to emergency with chest pain, here is what it measures and what the result means.
Chest pain has many possible causes, some cardiac, some not. Here is how doctors approach the assessment and which features matter most.
Chest tightness, pressure, squeezing, heaviness across the chest, is the hallmark description of angina. Here is why chest tightness always warrants assessment, and what the investigation involves.
You have a muscle bridge. For most people that sentence means nothing needs doing. For a minority it explains real chest pain, and new research shows how the troublesome ones can be treated.
Angina is chest pain caused by reduced blood flow to the heart, a signal that deserves attention. Here is what it feels like, what causes it, and how it is treated.
Most people are home within hours of a coronary angiogram, but knowing what to expect from the TR band, the results conversation, and the days after makes a real difference.
T wave inversion describes a small wave on the tracing pointing down instead of up. In several of the heart’s twelve viewpoints that is completely normal. What matters is which ones, and whether it is new.