Annals of internal medicine
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study
Effect of race on the presentation and management of patients with acute chest pain.
To compare racial differences in clinical presentation, natural history, and access to medical care and procedures among emergency-department patients with acute chest pain. ⋯ African-Americans and whites had a similar presentation and natural history of acute myocardial infarction and, after adjusting for probability of clinical events, similar access to most medical care and cardiac procedures. However, the rate of coronary artery bypass procedures was much lower among African-Americans than among whites. Reasons for this difference should be studied.