Diagnostic testing for chest pain in a pediatric emergency department and rates of cardiac disease before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: a retrospective study.

Chest pain is a common chief complaint in pediatric emergency departments (EDs). Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) has been shown to increase the risk of cardiac disease. It remains unclear how COVID-19 changed how pediatric emergency clinicians approach patients presenting with chest pain. The goal of this study was to characterize the diagnostic testing for chest pain in a pediatric ED before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. This was a retrospective study of children between the ages of 2-17 years presenting to a pediatric ED from 1/1/2018-2/29/2020 (Pre-COVID-19) and 3/1/2020-4/30/2022 (COVID-19) with chest pain. We excluded patients with a previous history of cardiac disease. Of the 10,721 encounters during the study period, 5,692 occurred before and 5,029 during COVID-19. Patient demographics showed minor differences by age, weight, race and ethnicity. ED encounters for chest pain consisted of an average of 18% more imaging studies during COVID-19, including 14% more EKGs and 11% more chest x-rays, with no difference in the number of echocardiograms. Compared to Pre-COVID-19, 100% more diagnostic tests were ordered during COVID-19, including cardiac markers Troponin I ( During COVID-19, pediatric patients with chest pain underwent more diagnostic testing compared to Pre-COVID-19. This may be due to higher patient acuity, emergence of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) that necessitated more extensive testing and possible changes in ED clinician behavior during COVID-19.

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© 2024 Atmanli, Yen and Zhou.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.