Chest pain, dyspnea and other symptoms in patients with type 1 and 2 myocardial infarction. A literature review

BACKGROUND: Some studies investigated the leading demographic and clinical characteristics of patient with type 2 myocardial infarction (MI), but a comprehensive analysis between type 1 and 2 MI patients is lacking. Therefore, we reviewed current evidence about the difference in clinical signs and symptoms at presentation in patients with type 1 and 2 MI. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We conducted an electronic search in Medline (with PubMed interface), Scopus and ISI Web of Science using the keywords "Type(-)2" or "Type II" and "myocardial infarction" and "chest pain" and "dyspnea" in "Title/Abstract/Keywords", with no language restriction, date limited from year 2007 to present, and study cohorts including more than 400 overall cases of MI. RESULTS: Overall, 37 documents were identified, but 33 were excluded since thoughtful comparison between the frequency of chest pain, dyspnea and other symptoms between patients with type 1 and type 2 MI was unavailable. Therefore, 4 studies were finally selected for analysis. Despite significant heterogeneity, the frequency of chest pain was consistently higher in patients with type 1 than type 2 MI (85% vs. 61%; p