MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION AND EARLY DIAGNOSIS IN EMERGENCY: A LITERATURE REVIEW

Abstract

Cardiovascular diseases are responsible for almost 32% of all deaths and among them, acute myocardial infarction is still one of the major causes of morbidity and mortality.  This review aims to analyze which diagnostic tests are chosen for the early and reliable diagnosis of myocardial infarction in emergency services. The methodological approach of this work was based on the National Library of Medicine, the Virtual Health Library and Directory of Open Access Journals with the descriptors: “myocardial infarction”, “early diagnosis” and “emergency medical services” using the Boolean operator “and”.  The filters used were journal article, clinical trial, open access articles, articles published in English, Portuguese, Spanish, age range, including those over 19 years old and articles published between 2016 and 2021. Early diagnosis of infarction was addressed of myocardial infarction in emergency care, with Copeptin, high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T, cMyC, computerized coronary angiography, clinical evaluation, HEART Pathwaya and the usual and transthoracic electrocardiogram being reported as existing diagnostic tests.  Thus, it was observed that high-sensitivity troponin, HEART score, copeptin, electrocardiogram and cMyC are the best diagnostic tests available in emergency units.  In addition, it was observed that the electrocardiogram is the most used due to its simplicity and ease of access for diagnostic confirmation or ruling out hypotheses.