2010, Volume 3, Issue 3, pp 242 – 253

Right ventricular myocardial infarction and pulmonary embolism differential diagnosis –a challenge for the clinician

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Authors and Affiliations

Correspondence to:Carmen Ginghina, M.D, Ph.D., Clinic of Cardiology Emergency Institute for cardiovascular diseases ‘C.C.Iliescu’ Bucharest 258 Fundeni Street, Bucharest, Romania

Abstract

It is frequently recognized in medical literature as well as in daily clinical practice that right ventricular myocardial infarction and pulmonary embolism are two of the most challenging clinical pictures to differentiate in cardiology and the treatment, often chosen upon a mixture of clinical suspicion criteria subsequently confirmed by other diagnostic methods, can lead to therapeutic success. Differential diagnosis is often difficult due to similar clinical picture, unspecific electrocardiographic changes and unspecific biological markers. It is very important to know the risk factors and the associated comorbidities for these two clinical entities in order to be able to interpret them contextually. In most cases the diagnosis key is the clinical suspicion. Usually in evaluating these cases we are in the position of choosing more complex diagnostic procedures, most likely not available in Emergency Department. In conclusion it is expected from the clinician to use the available methods with a thorough approach to details but in the same time considering the whole clinical picture.

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About this article

PMC ID: 3019007
PubMed ID: 20945815
DOI: 

Article Publishing Date (print): 15-08-2010
Available Online: 25-08-2010

Journal information

ISSN Printing: 1844-122X
ISSN Online: 1844-3117
Journal Title: Journal of Medicine and Life

Copyright License: Open Access

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.


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