Many patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarctions (STEMIs) have non-chest pain complaints and are given low priority during triage. This prospective, multicenter, observational, registry-based study investigated the impact of non-chest pain complaints on door-to-balloon (DTB) time and clinical outcomes. Patients with STEMI who had undergone primary percutaneous coronary intervention were compared with respect to the presence of chest pain or non-chest pain complaints as presenting symptoms. To eliminate biased estimates, a propensity score model was built, and 2 cohorts of 1:1 matched patients were obtained. Propensity matching identified 2 cohorts of 976 patients each. After comparing patients with chest pain and those with non-chest pain complaints, significant delays in the median DTB time were noted (74 vs 84 minutes, respectively; p <0.001). Non-chest pain complaints were independent predictors of DTB time in the multivariate linear regression models. In-hospital mortality (adjusted hazard ratio [HR] 1.402, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.727 to 2.705, p = 0.313), all-cause mortality (adjusted HR 1.175, 95% CI 0.453 to 3.853, p = 0.642), and major adverse cardiac events at follow-up (adjusted HR 0.139, 95% CI 0.876 to 1.48, p = 0.331) did not differ between the 2 groups of patients. In conclusion, short- and long-term clinical outcomes in patients with STEMI with non-chest pain complaints do not differ from those of patients with chest pain as the presenting symptom, despite having delayed diagnosis and reperfusion.
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