Death Rates Higher for Those Without This Symptom. As many as one-third of patients never have chest pains prior to or during a heart attack, a
Death Rates Higher for Those Without This Symptom. As many as one-third of patients never have chest pains prior to or during a heart attack, a study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association suggests. And for women, diabetics and others who belong to groups likely to have atypical heart attack symptoms, more than half may never have such pains. The report examined symptoms in more than 400,000 people who were treated for heart attacks in U.S. hospitals from 1994 to 1998. It found that patients who had no chest pains were more likely to have delays in treatment and were less likely to receive lifesaving therapies such as clot-busting drugs or the artery-clearing treatment angioplasty. And they were more likely to die -- approximately one in four patients without chest pains died during their heart attacks, compared to one in 10 patients with chest pains.
