Pediatric and Adolescent Chest Pain: A Cross Sectional Study

Chest pain is a common compliant in children and adolescents visiting the clinic. We assess and analyze the etiology of chest pain among children referred a pediatric cardiology clinic in cardiac center in south west of Iran. We assessed children with chest pain who visited our medical center during March 2013 to April 2014. Any case of trauma associated chest pain was excluded from this study. Data were analyzed by SPSS 17. A total of 200 patients (107 male, 93 female; age range (3−17 years) were enrolled into this study. ECG was taken from all patients that 6 patients had abnormal ECG. 43 patients had chest radiograms (39.5%). Echocardiograms were performed in 130 (65%) patients. Overall, idiopathic chest pain was the most common diagnosis (51%). Other associated disorders were musculoskeletal (30%), gastrointestinal (11.5%), pulmonary (3%), cardiac (4.5%). According to our data idiopathic chest pain seems to be the most common cause of chest pain in children. Careful physical examination can be helpful in diagnosis and treatment planning of children suffering of chest pain. Chest pain due to cardiac origin is rare, but it should be considered.