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Pleuritic chest pain and globus pharyngeus

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An AP chest x-ray provided no clues as to the cause of the patient’s substernal chest pain. Two other x-ray views, however, made the diagnosis clear.


 

References

A 22-year-old woman with a history of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and childhood asthma came to the emergency department (ED) for treatment of a cramping, substernal, pleuritic chest pain she’d had for a week and the feeling of a “lump in her throat” that made it difficult and painful for her to swallow. The patient’s vital signs were normal and her substernal chest pain was reproducible with palpation. An anteroposterior (AP) chest x-ray (CXR) was unremarkable.

A “GI cocktail” (lidocaine, Mylanta and Donnatal), ketorolac, morphine, and lorazepam were administered in the ED, but did not provide the patient with any relief. She was admitted to the hospital to rule out acute coronary syndrome and was kept NPO overnight. A repeat CXR with posteroanterior (PA) and lateral views was also obtained (FIGURE 1A AND 1B).

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