Thoracic pain is a common symptom in the emergency medicine setting and represents a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge. A multitude of differential diagnoses must be considered many of which are associated with a high mortality. Management of this situation is complicated by the fact that rapid and unexpectedly occurring and rapidly progressing deterioration are not uncommon in patients who initially did not appear to be seriously ill. Also for some underlying pathologies the physical examination can have an inconspicuous or"false negative" result and atypical presentations can give rise to false interpretations. The clinical and technical diagnostic methods, the implementation and interpretation including possible sources of error and limitations will be described in detail.