Cocaine use in young or otherwise healthy patients can sometimes cause chest pain and similar symptoms according to a warning from the American Heart Association (AHA) on Monday. It also added that the physicians should ask their patients as to whether they may have used the drug in such cases as two standard heart attack treatments -- beta-blockers and clot-busting drugs -- can be dangerous if a patient has been using cocaine.

Cocaine use can cause chest pain, shortness of breath, anxiety, palpitations, dizziness, nausea and heavy sweating - all symptoms of a heart attack. But it also results in increased blood pressure that can increase the risk of bleeding into the brain if a patient is given clot-busting drugs. Beta-blockers can cause higher blood pressure and constricted arteries in people who've used cocaine.

According to the government's Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the number of cocaine-related users visiting ERs rose 47 percent from 1995 to 2002, increasing from 135,711 to 199,198.

However, cocaine-related chest pain can usually occur within three hours of using the drug, it can stay in the body for at least 18 hours and continue to cause problems. Cocaine users with chest pain should be monitored in an observation unit for nine to 12 hours, the new guidelines say.

Only about 1 percent to 6 percent of patients with cocaine-associated chest pain actually have a heart attack, the statement says. Doctors still maintain it's important for anyone with chest pain to get it checked out. The statement was published in the journal Circulation.