Loading...
Which patients with syncope require hospital admission? To answer this question, researchers studied the incidence of acute myocardial infarction within 30 days of presentation in a cohort of 1474 consecutive emergency department patients who presented with syncope or near-syncope (mean age, 62) in California. Patients with definite seizure, trauma-associated syncope, or syncope caused by alcohol or drug use were excluded.
Emergency physicians used a structured data form during patient evaluation to classify electrocardiograms as normal or abnormal. ECGs were considered abnormal if they showed rhythm changes or new abnormalities compared with prior ECGs or any abnormalities when no prior study was available. Diagnosis of AMI during 30-day fo…