Chest pain is a common reason for parents to seek medical attention for their children.
Annually, physicians evaluate approximately 650,000 cases of chest pain in patients aged 10-21 years, a number that may reflect overwhelming concern about chest pain as a manifestation of cardiac disease and cancer in older patients. Costochondritis is a common cause of chest pain in children and adolescents. The condition is characterized as an inflammatory process of 1 or more of the costochondral cartilages that causes localized tenderness and pain of the anterior chest wall. Most cases of costochondritis are idiopathic. The remaining cases may result from costochondral irritation due to direct trauma, aggressive exercise that caused a strain, or a prior upper respiratory tract infection with cough that caused repeated stretching and strain at the costochondral junction.