Difficulties in diagnosing myocardial infarction in patients with atypical chest pain

About 12 million people die from cardiovascular diseases in the world every year. Most of these deaths are associated with myocardial infarction. Half of the patients die at the prehospital stage. Hospital mortality averages about 10%, and the same number of patients with a heart attack dies within a year. The quality of pre-hospital diagnosis of myocardial infarction remains low. One of the objective causes of these errors is the atypical clinical picture of the disease: in 25% of cases the course of myocardial infarction does not fit into the traditional framework. Not only medical history and typical clinical manifestation play an important role in the diagnosing myocardial infarction, but also application of modern methods. The medical history and typical clinical manifestation play an important role in the diagnosing myocardial infarction. We have analyzed two cases of the atypical course of myocardial infarction. A 42-year-old patient with atypical pain syndrome reduced by spasmalgon and irritating ointments, was diagnosed with myocardial infarction during an indepth examination. In the second case, a 23-year-old patient, abusing drugs, was admitted with symptoms of dyspepsia, only a thorough examination revealed myocardial infarction.