Masquerades of myocardial infarction.

I summarize these observations in Figure 1. It represents every person in a hypothetical population who has myocardial infarction. A large but unknown number, some believe almost half, never get help. Mobile coronary care units are reducing this group, but so far only a little. When the diagnosis is not understood the disease is not recognized. Then come discovery and popularization. Hereafter masquerades hide some cases and the diagnosis is missed. Somewhere fairly early the diagnostic fad leads to false positive diagnosis. As new techniques are discovered, perfected and mastered, false positive errors and masquerades leading to oversights diminish but still exist. All the skill and technical virtuosity in the world will not be applied if we do not think of the disease. When we think of it, even obscure cases may be resolved easily.