What is chest pain?

  Chest pain is a very common symptom, and a significant portion of patients in the thoracic surgery consultation is for chest pain, in which China lacks specific data. Nowadays, due to the popularization of health education, people have a lot of medical knowledge and are very alert to coronary heart disease, so once chest pain occurs, they are very nervous and suspect that it is angina pectoris or a tumor, which causes a great psychological burden to patients.  Usually, we divide chest pain into two categories according to the cause of chest pain: cardiogenic chest pain, which is caused by heart disease, mainly coronary angina; the other category of non-cardiogenic chest pain is not related to heart disease, but caused by other chest diseases. In fact, chest pain caused by coronary heart disease only accounts for about 10% of patients with chest pain, and most patients with chest pain are suffering from other causes of chest pain. However, non-coronary heart disease chest pain is often difficult to diagnose or clinicians do not pay enough attention to it, which leads to a large number of chest pain patients over-visiting doctors and over-examinations. Since they cannot get a good diagnosis, even after detailed examinations to exclude coronary heart disease, many patients still insist that their chest pain is angina pectoris, which causes a great impact on patients’ lives.  Due to the inaccurate positioning of visceral nerves, the patient’s description of the specific location of the occurrence of chest pain, the nature of the pain, and the time of attack is often ambiguous. Parts According to the anatomy of the human chest, we can roughly divide the etiological parts of chest pain into four major blocks: 1. Chest wall: including the skin, ribs and rib cartilage and sternum. The main diseases are herpes zoster, costochondritis, etc.  2, pleura and lung. The main diseases are pleurisy, pneumothorax, lung tumor invasion of the pleura, etc.  3.Mediastinum, including heart and large blood vessels. Serious diseases include mediastinal tumors, coronary artery disease, and aortic coarctation.  4, esophagus. Mainly reflux esophagitis.  It is worth noting that some people can also trigger chest pain due to psychological factors, such as great fear or anxiety.  When a patient with chest pain goes to the hospital, the doctor will first listen patiently to the patient’s description of the chest pain, such as the time and location of the chest pain attack, the nature of the pain and accompanying symptoms.  The doctor will then perform a physical examination of the patient’s chest, often relying on equipment, including chest X-ray and electrocardiogram for primary examinations, and sometimes CT and enhanced CT of the chest for complicated conditions, and enhanced CT or angiography of the coronary arteries if necessary to diagnose coronary heart disease.  If a patient has a sudden onset of severe chest pain, he or she should go to the hospital immediately to see the emergency room, and if the patient is too sick to move, he or she should call an emergency vehicle, and before waiting for the arrival of the emergency vehicle, if family members and friends know some basic common sense and take some rescue measures, they can get the best rescue time for the patient. The following measures can be referred to: 1, after the occurrence of severe chest pain, the patient should be allowed to lie down and rest, untie the collar to ensure a clear airway, if there is vomiting to maintain the lateral position to avoid accidental aspiration.  2, if there is a history of angina pectoris, the patient can be given sublingual nitroglycerin or quick-acting heart pills.  3. If you have a blood pressure monitor at home, quickly measure the patient’s blood pressure, and strive to give antihypertensive drugs if the blood pressure rises sharply.  4.If there is oxygen equipment, give the patient oxygen.  5.Calm the patient’s emotions and wait for rescue.  After the patient is transported to the hospital, the first medical staff will observe the general condition of the patient, monitor the heart rate, blood pressure, breathing and other conditions, and then conduct some relevant laboratory tests and examinations in order to clarify the diagnosis.