Chest Pain in Pediatric Patients

One hundred and twenty‐three patients (72 males and 51 females) with the chief complaint of chest pain, seen at our department during the five‐year period from January 1982 to December 1986, were studied regarding their past medical history, physical findings, results of diagnostic tests, and prognosis. The ages of the subjects ranged from 3 to 16 years (mean 11.7 years) in boys and 3 to 20 years (mean 10.9 years) in girls, constituting 0.54% of the total number of the mean annual outpatients. Of these 123, 80 patients (65%) had chest pain lasting over one month, and 91 patients (74%) had a short time of duration of pain which improved within a few seconds to five minutes. In nine (7%) of the 123 patients, the pain was considered to be related to cardiovascular lesions and in 82 patients (67%) as being idiopathic chest pain. Chest pain in children is rarely due to serious primary cardiovascular diseases.