UMEM Educational Pearls

Category: Cardiology

Title: cardiac contusion and the EKG

Keywords: blunt cardiac trauma, cardiac contusion, myocardial contusion (PubMed Search)

Posted: 8/10/2008 by Amal Mattu, MD (Updated: 3/29/2024)
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"The most common EKG abnormalities are non-specific ST-T wave changes, followed by RBBB. A normal EKG does not exclude the possibility of cardiac injury, although some investigators report a negative predictive value of up to 80-90%."

[El-Chami MF, Nicholson W, Helmy T. Blunt cardiac trauma. J Emerg Med 2008;35:127-133.]