WEDNESDAY, Dec. 30 (HealthDay News) -- Nausea and vomiting are common symptoms of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) that occurs in both inferior and anterior AMIs, but the frequency of these symptoms are unlikely related to the infarct location, according to a study in the Dec. 15 issue of the American Journal of Cardiology.
Eileen E. Fuller, M.D., of Texas Health in Dallas, and colleagues studied the medical records of 180 patients admitted to the hospital for ST-segment elevation AMI or AMI associated with left bundle branch block. The researchers correlated symptoms (chest pain, nausea, vomiting), electrocardiographic findings at presentation, and other demographic, laboratory, clinical and outcome data to the location of the infarct on the heart.
The researchers found that, in the study group, 108 AMI patients (60 percent) had inferior and 72 (40 percent) had anterior infarcts. Nausea and vomiting tended to occur more in patients with inferior AMI (69 and 56 percent, respectively) than in patients with anterior AMI and (33 and 26 percent, respectively). However, these differences were not considered statistically significant. More than 90 percent of the subjects reported chest pain.
"Although a slightly greater numeric incidence of nausea and vomiting was recorded for the inferior than for the anterior AMI group, the differences were not statistically significant and were probably of little clinical relevance," the authors write.
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