New guidelines to help physicians quickly diagnose and treat two related forms of heart disease have just been issued jointly by the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Heart Association (AHA).
The guidelines concern unstable angina and non–ST segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI). Both conditions can appear identical in their early stages and cause people to head to the emergency department, but people with NSTEMI experience permanent myocardial injury, whereas in those with unstable angina, ischemia is not initially severe enough to cause irreversible damage.
The guidelines—which aim to help physicians distinguish between the two conditions and treat each appropriately—were developed by an expert panel of the ACC and the AHA and are based on the most recent scientific findings published in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's evidence report on The Prediction of Risk for Patients with Unstable Angina. (Other guidelines, issued in . . . [Full Text of this Article]
