I don’t think any Interventional Cardiologist is going straight from “chest pain in the ER” to the catch lab. I imagine they still check the enzymes and maybe even do a scan first. Which may be why it took until today to go to the catch lab.
It depends. An acute MI goes from the ER to the cath lab sometimes even bypassing the ER. If there is no evidence of acute MInthibgs are done at a more leisurely pace and the cath lab happens 1-2 days out if other tests indicate a cath is needed.
“I don’t think any Interventional Cardiologist is going straight from “chest pain in the ER” to the catch lab. I imagine they still check the enzymes and maybe even do a scan first.”
absolutely untrue, and i know from experience: often a heart attack has enough overt symptoms it’s obvious what is going on, plus troponin levels take a few hours to rise, by which time one could be dead ... and I’ve NEVER had a scan before being hustled into the cath lab when a heart attack was evident or strongly suspected ...
time is of the essence when there is a blockage and all cardiologists know that, and all the ones i’ve ever dealt with have told me they’d much rather do a angiogram that was a false alarm the not do one and have another dead patient on their hands ...
They go right to cath lab if it’s serious symptoms wise....enzymes come back quick now anyhow
If you’re in acute chest pain and pallid or yellow and O2 plummeting and pulse feeble or have a known history
There’s little time to waste....they’ll administer heparin and morphine
You can end up with stents in an hour or so or CABG 12 hours later in the blue pod
I go to Vanderbilt for such entertainment....they have surpassed St Thomas in my opinion here in Nashville for cardiac emergency care
If you’re stable then yes....it’s the slow route and you might wait hours or overnight for invasive procedure
I had a friend suffered a serious heart attack and ambulance took him to St Thomas he was in cath immediately and heart surgery immediately after as they discovered the blockage location