Researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center find patients with shortness of breath may have a higher risk of dying from cardiac disease than patients without symptoms, and even with patients that suffer from typical cardiac pain.Daniel Berman, M.D., senior author of the study and the Director of Cardiac Imaging at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center says, "Patients often do not interpret shortness of breath as a serious symptom, but particularly in patients who have cardiac risk factors and in patients without lung disease, it may be the only sign of the presence of serious coronary artery disease that may need treatment."

In the retrospective study, patients without diagnosed coronary artery disease who had shortness of breath were four times more likely to suffer death from a cardiac cause than a symptomatic patients and twice as likely as patients who had chest pain that is considered to be typical cardiac pain.

Berman explains, "These findings may in part be due to the fact that doctors are more likely to send patients with chest pain to bypass surgery or angioplasty than patients with shortness of breath."

Coronary artery disease, usually associated with the presence of plaque build-up in the arteries surrounding the heart, is one the main causes of death in both men and women. While it often is associated with chest pain, about half of the patients with this serious disease either die suddenly without prior symptoms or have a heart attack as the first manifestation of the disease.