1990 Volume 39 Issue 3 Pages 187-192
The term “atypical chest pain” is a waste-basket term that leads physicians to send any patient with chest pain to coronary angiography. In order to avoid this term, we must learn to distinguish atypical angina from nonanginal chest pain before angiography is considered in order to avoid unnecessary invasive procedures. A chest pain is very likely nonanginal if its duration is over 30 minutes or less than 5 seconds, it increases with inspiration, can be brought on with one movement of the trunk or arm, can be brought on by local fingers pressure, or bending forward, or it can be relieved immediately on lying down. There are also many presumptive signs of nonanginal chest pain such as localization with one finger, radiation to the nuchal area, an inframammary primary site, a pain that reaches maximum at the onset, or relief within a few seconds of swallowing food. Cervical root compression pain and esophageal spasm are the greatest mimics of angina since they can both be relieved by nitroglycerin but they have several features which help to rule out angina.
