Aetiological evaluation of chest pain in childhood and adolescence.
BACKGROUND
Chest pain, as a common cause of hospital admissions in childhood, necessitates detailed investigations due to a wide range of differential diagnoses. In this study, we aimed to determine the distribution of diseases causing chest pain in children and investigate the clinical characteristics of children with chest pain.


METHODS
This study included 782 patients aged between 3 and 18 years who presented to a paediatric cardiology outpatient clinic with chest pain between April 2017 and March 2018. Aetiological causes and demographic features of the patients were analysed.


RESULTS
Most prevalent causes of chest pain were musculoskeletal system (33%) and psychogenic (28.4%) causes. Chest pain due to cardiac reasons was seen in eight patients (1%). Diseases of musculoskeletal and gastrointestinal systems and psychogenic disorders were significantly more common in male and female patients, respectively (p < 0.001 for all). In winter, patients' age and the number of patients with ≥12 years were higher than those in other seasons (p < 0.001). Most of the parents (70.8%) and patients (90.2%) thought that chest pain in their children was caused by cardiac causes.


CONCLUSION
Most of the diagnoses for chest pain in childhood period are benign and include the musculoskeletal system and psychogenic diseases. Although chest pain due to cardiac diseases is rare, a comprehensive analysis of medical history, detailed physical examination and cardiac imaging with echocardiography is needed to reach more accurate diagnoses.
['Aygun|Emre|E|https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0546-327X', 'Aygun|Sibel Tugce|ST|', 'Uysal|Taciser|T|', 'Aygun|Fatih|F|', 'Dursun|Hasan|H|', 'Irdem|Ahmet|A|']
D000293:Adolescent D002637:Chest Pain D002648:Child D002675:Child, Preschool D003937:Diagnosis, Differential D004452:Echocardiography D004562:Electrocardiography D005260:Female D006801:Humans D008297:Male D010808:Physical Examination D011446:Prospective Studies D012017:Referral and Consultation
chest pain adolescent psychogenic Child non-cardiac