Background/Purpose:
Chest pain has multiple etiologies, but cervical radiculopathy is
not considered to be one of them. There is innervation of the chest wall from
segmental nerves originating from the cervical spine.

Methods:
We describe four patients who had left sided chest pain with
left arm pain, whose workups demonstrated cervical radiculopathies but no
evidence of coronary artery disease.

Results:
Four patients, three males and one female, ages 58 to 62, each
presented with left chest pain.  Each patient had a negative thallium
exercise stress test and an echocardiogram.   Each of these four patients
also described left arm discomfort. The chest and arm discomfort were
often felt as a tingling or burning sensation.  Each patient had an
MRI demonstrating left cervical disc herniation and/or an EMG consistent with a
left cervical radiculopathy.

Conclusion:   These
four patients demonstrate that chest pain accompanied by left arm pain may
be a manifestation of a left cervical radiculopathy.  Thallium stress
tests and echocardiograms  were normal in these patients.  Each
had an MRI, and some also had EMGs, consistent with a cervical
radiculopathy. 

These
cases demonstrate that a cervical radiculopathy should be considered in the
differential diagnosis of patients with chest pain especially
when accompanied by left arm pain or dysesthesias.