ecg

Treatment of STEMI is straightforward, but the treatment of NSTEMI is not as clear-cut! This post will review the risk stratification and treatment of patients with NSTEMI.

Welcome to the third blog post in a series on subtle ECG findings in ACS. This post about mimics: benign early repolarization (BER) and the anterior STEMI. Each of these can mimic the other. The problem is that one of these diagnoses is deadly and the other is a normal variant.

What if you could identify a patient with complete coronary vessel occlusion almost immediately after it occurs, before the ST segments begin to elevate? What if you could pick up the very subtle, early MI? We know that early recognition and intervention improves outcomes in patients with coronary artery occlusion. Sometimes patients presenting with ACS are obvious. Sometimes it seems that the patient has read the textbook. However, more often than not, patients are not obvious, especially in the early stages of ACS. That is why we are concerning ourselves with subtlety.

ECG interpretation is one of the most important skills to master as an emergency physician, and its interpretation can be very complex and frustrating. ECG manifestations can be very subtle, and sometimes the earliest and only ECG change seen will be reciprocal changes alone.

Karalynn Otterness, MD presents a case of a patient presenting with chest pain who has a crucial finding on the initial ECG.