Deceased
Trevor Edward Hammond
Demographics
72y, male
Date of death
2011-06-04
Finding date
2013-06-17
Cause of death
ischaemic heart disease secondary to coronary artery disease
AI-generated summary
A 72-year-old man with hypercholesterolaemia and obesity presented to the ED with chest pain and atrial fibrillation. Initial ECG showed no acute changes. Clinicians pursued a pulmonary embolus diagnosis based on pleuritic-sounding pain and positive d-dimer, commencing anticoagulation. CTPA was negative and he was discharged with plans for outpatient cardiology review. He died at home the next day from myocardial infarction secondary to severe triple-vessel coronary artery disease. The critical omission was failure to order troponin testing despite chest pain presentation. While the pleuritic description and atypical features led clinicians down the PE diagnostic pathway, troponin is a simple, inexpensive test that should have been performed given the differential diagnosis of acute coronary syndrome. Although we cannot know if a positive troponin would have changed management, this represents a diagnostic error where a basic cardiac biomarker was not measured in a high-risk patient with chest pain.
AI-generated summary and tagging — may contain inaccuracies; refer to original finding for legal purposes.
Specialties
Error types
Drugs involved
Clinical conditions
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