Chest pain is the chief complaint in about 1 to 2% of all outpatient visits.

And although the cause is often non-cardiac, heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States.

Now, chest pain for us as health care providers is one of

those things when patients come in and complain of it it makes certain spinctures

in our body tighten up. The reason why we don't want to miss a heart attack, something severe or

something extreme. Because as you've heard me say before in board review courses

and on this particular podcast, if there are three organs that are going to

kill you the fastest, it's going to be brain, heart, and kidneys.

And so for that reason, the complaint of chest pain makes everyone, quote unquote, uncomfortable.

However, there are many causes of chest pain. We do worry about cardiac

chest pain. There's also reflux, which we've discussed. There is also pneumonia

and pulmonary embolism, and we know these causes are taught to us time and time again.

But there are other causes of chest pain that sometimes we forget about, like for example,

paracarditis.

Now, MSNBC anchor Yasmin Vasugian this week actually came out and talked about her harrowing experience

with the heart inflammatory condition known as pericarditis, which she developed after having a common cold. She was actually hospitalized twice before a cardiologist came in and told her what was going on.

So with that, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to use that as our inspiration this week to discuss a classic bread and butter topic in medicine

known as pericarditis.

I'm Dr. Niket Son Paul, your friendly neighborhood internist and gastrantrolyst,

and let's jump into the condition known as pericarditis? Well it turns out that acute pericarditis is the most common

disorder involving the pericardium, which is like saying you're the most common issue of a small little organ.

But the epidemiologic studies don't really tell us the truth, and if you were to read the news articles recently,

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