Rest angina with transient S-T segment elevation. Correlation of clinical features with coronary anatomy

Clinical characteristics and long-term survival of patients with variant angina

We studied 109 consecutive patients with variant angina who underwent cardiac catheterization over an 11 year period. All patients were followed for at least 6 months or until death, and 46 patients (22 treated medically and 24 treated surgically) were followed for 5 years or more. Of the 62 patients initially treated medically, 14 had nonfatal myocardial infarctions (12 within 1 month of catheterization) and 12 died (six within 6 months). Survival probabilities at 1, 3, and 5 years were 0.88, 0.84, and 0.77, respectively. Of the 48 surgically treated patients (including four patients initially treated medically and one initially treated with coronary angioplasty), four had nonfatal infarctions (three in the perioperative period) and three died (all in the perioperative period). The survival probability in these patients at 1 year was 0.94 and remained unchanged at 3 and 5 years. Only one nonfatal infarction and no deaths have occurred in the group of surgically treated patients subsequent to hospital discharge. Three additional patients were treated with coronary angioplasty. The single most important prognostic factor in medically treated patients was the presence or absence of fixed obstructive coronary artery disease. Infarction-free survival probabilities at 1 and 3 years in the 23 patients without significant coronary artery disease were 1.0 and 0.89, compared with 0.51 and 0.46 in the 39 patients with significant coronary disease. Analysis by the Cox model showed that variant angina patients had a higher probability of death and nonfatal infarction than did those with nonvariant angina coronary disease if other important prognostic variables were held constant.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Variant angina--correlation of clinical, electrocardiographic and angiographic features: results of medical and surgical management

Angiographic coronary artery disease (CAD) was correlated with clinical features, electrocardiographic (ECG) findings and the results of medical management or aortocoronary bypass in 42 patients with angina at rest associated with transient ST segment elevation (variant angina). Patients were divided into three sub-sets based on the coronary arteriographic findings. On the basis of greater than 75% luminal diameter narrowing, 28 patients had multiple vessel, ten had single vessel and four had minimal (less than 50% narrowing) CAD. The angiographic sub-sets did not differ significantly in age, sex, coronary risk factors, time from onset of rest pain to coronary angiography, or in the presence of arrhythmias during ischaemic episodes. Patients with multiple vessel CAD more commonly had prior coronary events (P less than 0.01), an abnormal baseline ECG (P less than 0.05) or both (P less than 0.001). These features did not distinguish patients with single vessel from those with minimal CAD. ST elevation in the inferior leads during episodes of myocardial ischaemia was more common (P less than 0.005) in patients with minimal CAD. Twenty--four patients with multiple vessel and six with single vessel CAD underwent aortocoronary by-pass surgery and relief of variant angina was achieved in all 25 long-term survivors during an average follow-up period of 36 months. Twelve patients (four of each subset) were treated medically. Among those with multiple vessel CAD, the small medically treated numbers precluded valid comparison of medical and surgical results. Patients with single vessel CAD followed for an average period of 17 months compared unfavourably with the operated group. Calcium antagonists with the operated group. Calcium antagonists or nitrates controlled variant angina in patients with minimal CAD followed for an average of 27 months.

Relation of coronary arterial spasm to sites of organic stenosis

Among 63 patients with Prinzmetal's variant angina, coronary arterial spasm responsible for attacks of variant angina was documented arteriographically in 9 patients. In each observed episode (11 attacks in nine patients), coronary spasm producing myocardial ischemia occurred at and was superimposed on a site of preexisting organic stenosis. Measurements of normal portions of "spastic" and "nonspastic" vessels suggested a generalized uniform constriction of all major coronary arteries during attacks, with "spasm" limited to the site of an organic lesion in most cases. In two cases the magnitude of constriction in all vessels was consistent with generalized coronary hypercontractility or spasm. Among 104 patients with organic coronary artery disease and documented single vessel coronary spasm (foregoing 9 patients combined with 95 others from published reports), there were 70 patients with essentially single vessel organic coronary disease in 90 percent of whom the spasm involved the diseased vessel. Of 60 cases abstracted from the literature in which the relation of coronary spasm to the site of organic disease was described, 88 percent had the spasm causing ischemia localized to the site of an organic lesion. Hypotheses attempting to describe the pathophysiologic aspects of coronary spasm in variant angina must account for the intimate association of spasm with sites of organic stenosis in the majority of cases.