Assessment of the Role of Bedside Echocardiography in Predicting One-Month Outcome of the Patients with Low Risk Unstable Angina

Unstable angina accounts for about 30% of cardiovascular patients referred to emergency departments. Low risk patients can be discharged and receive outpatient treatment if clinical and paraclinical assays are normal. The recommended pre-discharge evaluations are controversial. However, because of the availability and safety of bedside echocardiography in emergency departments, we decided to conduct this study.Patients and This cohort study was done on 140 patients with chest pain who were diagnosed with low risk unstable angina and admitted to the Emergency Department of Hazrat Rasoul-e-Akram Hospital. All of the cases underwent bedside echocardiography before their discharge. Calling the patients one month after their discharge, their outcomes were recorded. Then we made a comparison between echocardiographic findings and their one-month outcomes. The data were analyzed via SPSS software using statistical tests such as Fisher, Chi-square and t-test. The mean age of the patients was 51.39(SD=10.13) years. 42.1%(59 cases) were female and 57.9%(81 cases) were male. The patients with abnormal echocardiographic findings, i.e. EF(Ejection Fraction)<40% and wall motion abnormality, had a significantly higher rate of re-hospitalization because of chest pain(p=0.000). The study shows that bedside echocardiography before discharge is a reliable method for predicting cardiovascular events in low risk unstable angina patients.