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Patients with low-risk chest pain often undergo provocative testing in the emergency department or in an ED observation unit before discharge. Recent studies have demonstrated that computed tomography (CT) coronary angiography correlates highly with cardiac catheterization in detecting coronary artery stenosis and that CT results predict future cardiac events. In this prospective study, researchers compared the diagnostic accuracy of CT coronary angiography and nuclear sestamibi stress testing.
A convenience sample of 85 patients who were admitted to an ED observation unit for evaluation of low-risk chest pain and had negative serial ECGs and negative cardiac markers underwent both tests. Patients with positive stress test results (reversibl…