ASNC’s Thoughts on the AHA/ACC Chest Pain Guidelines

ASNC’s Thoughts on the AHA/ACC Chest Pain Guidelines

Randall C. Thompson, MD, MASNC,a
Mouaz H. Al-Mallah, MD, FASNC,b
Rob S. B. Beanlands, MD, MASNC,c
Dennis A. Calnon, MD, MASNC,d
Sharmila Dorbala, MD, MPH, MASNC, e
Lawrence M. Phillips, MD, FASNC, f
Donna M. Polk, MD, MPH, FASNC, e
and Prem Soman, MD, PhD, MASNC, g for the ASNC Board of Director

a St. Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute and University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, MO
b Cardiology, Houston Methodist Hospital, Houston, TX
c Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, University of Ottawa Heart Institute, Ottawa, Canada
d OhioHealth Heart & Vascular Physicians, Columbus, OH
e Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA
f Division of Cardiology, NYU Langone Medical Center, New York, NY
g University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, PA

This week the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology published the 2021 AHA/ACC/ASE/SAEM/SCCT/SCMR Guideline for the Evaluation and Diagnosis of Chest Pain.1 Guidelines on the care of patients with chest pain have been greatly needed for some time to reflect significant changes in the evidence base and technological advances in this field. After thoughtful deliberation, however, the Board of Directors of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC) determined that the Society could not endorse the guideline because the majority of Board members were of the opinion that important parts of the document do not support the principle of Patient First Imaging.