[Variant angina pectoris].
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A 54 years-old man with a history of migraine, suffered from chest pain together with ST-segment elevation related to the intake of drugs against migraine attacks. The coronary arteriography showed normal coronary arteries. We suggest coronary artery spasm as the most probable cause of ischemia. We conclude that vasoactive drugs against migraine must be utilized with caution, or even avoided in patients with chest pain suggestive of myocardial ischemia.
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To test the hypothesis that coronary spasm could be a coronary manifestation of systemic endothelial dysfunction and that the activity of coronary spasm could influence systemic endothelial function, we examined brachial flow-mediated, endothelium-dependent vasodilation and nitroglycerin-induced endothelium-independent vasodilation with high-resolution ultrasound in 11 men with variant angina pectoris (6 active and 5 inactive) without established coronary atherosclerosis. Endothelium-dependent vasodilation in peripheral circulation was preserved in men with active and inactive variant angina pectoris, suggesting that systemic endothelial dysfunction is not involved in either the pathogenesis or the activity of coronary spasm.
To assess the effects of verapamil and nifedipine on left ventricular function at rest and during exercise in patients with Prinzmetal's variant angina pectoris, 10 patients (6 men and 4 women with a mean age of 52 years) with variant angina were each treated for 2 months periods with placebo, verapamil (400 +/- 80 mg/day, mean +/- standard deviation [SD]) and nifedipine (82 +/- 31 mg/day). During the final week of each 2 month treatment period equilibrium gated blood pool scintigraphy was performed at rest and during exercise. At rest, heart rate during verapamil therapy was lower than during treatment with nifedipine; systolic blood pressure and left ventricular volumes and ejection fraction were similar for the three interventions. The maximal work load achieved was similar during placebo, verapamil and nifedipine therapy. At the maximal work load common to all three exercise studies, heart rate and systolic blood pressure were lower with verapamil than with placebo and nifedipine; ventricular volumes and ejection fraction were similar with the three agents. Thus, in patients with variant angina and a wide range of left ventricular function at rest, neither verapamil nor nifedipine significantly alters left ventricular volumes or ejection fraction at rest or during exercise.
The clinical effects of nitrendipine, a new calcium antagonist, were investigated in a single-blind test on 21 patients with variant angina pectoris. The efficacy of the drug was evaluated on the basis of frequency of anginal attacks and Holter electrocardiographic findings during different treatment periods at doses of 10 mg once a day (period I) and 20 mg once a day (period II). The number of anginal attacks decreased significantly from a pretreatment level of 2.1 +/- 0.3 per day to 0.7 +/- 0.2 per day in treatment period I and 0.3 +/- 0.1 per day in treatment period II (p less than 0.01, p less than 0.001, respectively). The consumption of sublingual nitroglycerin tablets decreased significantly in both treatment periods in comparison with the observation period before treatment (p less than 0.01, p less than 0.001, respectively). In 20 patients with continuous ECG monitoring, the frequency of ST-segment elevation was 4.5 +/- 1.0 per day during the pretreatment period; it decreased significantly to 0.9 +/- 0.6 per day in treatment period I and 0.5 +/- 0.3 per day in treatment period II (p less than 0.01, p less than 0.001, respectively). The duration and the maximum magnitude of ST-segment elevation also improved significantly in both treatment periods. These results demonstrate the efficacy of nitrendipine in the treatment of variant angina at a single daily dose of 10 mg.
Twelve patients were entered prospectively into a randomized double-blind study comparing the efficacy of nifedipine and isosorbide dinitrate (ISDN) in the treatment of variant angina pectoris due to coronary artery spasm. Using the diary technique, both anginal episodes and nitroglycerin tablets consumed were recorded during the pretrial, no drug period, and both active drug phases. During the baseline pretrial period, an average of 1.1 anginal episodes/day occurred with reduction to 0.28/day during nifedipine treatment and 0.39/day during ISDN treatment. Headache was the major side effect during ISDN treatment, occurring in 9 of 11 (81%) patients; and nonheart failure related pedal edema during nifedipine treatment, occurring in 4 of 12 (33%) patients. Intolerable side effects necessitating cessation of treatment occurred in two patients during nifedipine treatment and in three patients during ISDN treatment. Patients preferred nifedipine over ISDN because of increased efficacy and fewer uncomfortable side effects. We conclude that both nifedipine and ISDN are effective therapy for coronary spasm, but that nifedipine was more effective and was preferred by the majority of patients.
A case of variant angina with angiographically "normal" coronary arteries is reported. The clinical picture had been dominated by chronic stable angina for six years, and this symptomatology was complicated by pain at rest and also during the night. Two years later the patient had a myocardial infarction.
A 30-year-old man with variant angina pectoris and ventricular arrhythmias had an angiographically demonstrable 60% obstructive lesion of the proximal left anterior descending coronary artery that was observed to progress to 100% during spasm. Control of pain and arrhythmia by pharmacologic means was unsuccessful. Aortocoronary saphenous vein-internal mammary coronary bypass was associated with an anteroseptal wall myocardial infarction and relief from both angina pectoris and arrhythmias. It is suggested that infarction of the ischemic myocardium played a role in the successful management of this case.
Six patients with Prinzmetal's variant angina were treated with oral verapamil administration. Before and after the initiation of therapy, ambulatory ECG monitoring was performed to assess objectively the response to therapy. With verapamil administration, the frequency of both chest pain and transient ST-segment deviations was sharply diminished.
Twelve patients with nonexertional chest pain and nonobstructive fixed coronary disease (less than 50% luminal diameter narrowing) were given histamine to investigate the potential role (coronary artery H1 receptor agonism) of the endogenous agent in producing coronary artery spasm (CAS). Histamine, at intravenous dose of 0.5 to 1.0 microgram/kg/min, provoked CAS in four patients. In six patients neither histamine nor ergonovine provoked spasm, and these patients were considered by chronic follow-up evaluation to have noncardiac etiology for their chest pain syndrome. In one patient CAS was provoked with ergonovine but not by histamine, and one ergonovine-positive patient had an equivocally positive histamine result. Pretreatment with cimetidine (H2 receptor antagonism) was necessary to avoid unpleasant side effects of histamine. Thus these observations indicate that histamine should be included among the specific agents capable of inducing CAS and provide new insight concerning the mechanism(s) causing variant angina pectoris.
To study whether magnesium (Mg) deficiency is present in patients with variant angina, 24-hour Mg retention of low dose Mg (0.2 mEq/kg lean body weight) administered intravenously over 4 hours in 20 patients with variant angina was examined. No patient had received calcium antagonists before or during the study. All had attacks of chest pain associated with ST elevation on electrocardiograms. Twenty-one subjects without ischemic heart disease were studied as control subjects. Ten patients with variant angina were restudied 10 to 529 days (mean 235 +/- 30) after the treatment with calcium antagonists (diltiazem 120 to 240 or nifedipine 40 to 80 mg/day), which resulted in complete suppression of anginal attacks. The mean serum Mg concentrations in the patients with variant angina and the control subjects were 2.1 +/- 0.05 and 2.1 +/- 0.03 mg/dl, respectively (difference not significant). However, 24-hour Mg retention in the patients with variant angina was 60 +/- 5%, while that in the control subjects was 36 +/- 3% (p less than 0.001), suggesting that Mg deficiency is present in at least some patients with variant angina. The mean serum Mg concentrations before and after calcium antagonist treatment in 10 patients with variant angina were 2.1 +/- 0.09 and 2.1 +/- 0.07 mg/dl, respectively (difference not significant). However, 24-hour Mg retention decreased significantly (p less than 0.01) from 60 +/- 6 to 34 +/- 7% after the treatment. There is Mg deficiency in many patients with variant angina and it is corrected after treatment with calcium antagonists.
The present study investigates the prognostic significance of silent myocardial ischemia in variant angina. Forty-eight-hour Holter monitoring and coronary angiography were performed in 54 patients with transient ST elevation and no history of myocardial infarction admitted to the coronary care unit for worsening of symptoms. Coronary artery spasm was documented in most of these patients. Over the subsequent month, 20 patients (group 1) had a major coronary event (2 died, 6 had nonfatal myocardial infarction and 12 had urgent coronary revascularization), and the remaining 34 patients (group 2) had a good clinical outcome. From 2,578 hours of recording, 547 ischemic episodes were identified of which only 9% were associated with angina. The mean daily number of ST elevation in group 1 was similar to that in group 2 (4.8 +/- 5.1 vs 4.1 +/- 4.6; p = not significant). Conversely, the mean daily duration of such ischemic episodes was consistently greater in group 1 than in 2 (79 +/- 36 vs 37 +/- 25 minutes; p less than 0.005). The occurrence of greater than or equal to 1 long-lasting (greater than or equal to 10 minutes) episode of ST elevation was observed in 18 of 20 patients in group 1 (sensitivity 90%), but only in 4 of 34 in group 2 (specificity 88%). Significant coronary atherosclerosis (greater than 50% stenoses) was found at angiography in 18 of 20 patients in group 1, and in 18 of 34 in group 2.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Lipid and apolipoprotein (apo) levels in patients with variant angina were examined and compared with patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) and normal subjects (control). Cholesterol and triglyceride levels in plasma, lipoprotein fractions and several apolipoproteins were measured in 108 men (90 of whom had undergone coronary angiography): 22 had variant angina, 56 had fixed CAD (effort angina and old myocardial infarction) and 30 were normal subjects. Patients with variant angina showed more severe atherosclerotic lesions than the control group, but less severe lesions than the patients with fixed CAD. In comparison with lipid and apolipoprotein, high density lipoprotein cholesterol, apo AI and apo AII decreased significantly in control, variant angina and fixed CAD groups, respectively. Additionally, stepwise discriminant analysis revealed that apo AI was the best discriminator among the 3 groups or between variant angina or fixed CAD and the control group. Variant angina and fixed CAD patients could be discriminated from the control subjects by an apo AI level of 135 and 126 mg/dl, with 71% (p less than 0.025) and 73% (p less than 0.005) accuracy, respectively. By these criteria 77% of the patients with variant angina and 73% of the patients with fixed CAD were precisely discriminated. Discrimination between variant angina and fixed CAD patients, however, was not practical, even if the best discriminator was used. Thus, the apo AI level is useful in discriminating patients with variant angina and fixed CAD from normal subjects. Therefore, symptomatic patients with low apo AI levels should be aggressively examined.
A patient with variant angina showed similar findings on both the rest and matched exercise 201Thallium (201Tl) myocardial perfusion scintigrams. The 65-year old man was admitted to hospital because of rest angina. His electrocardiogram during the attack disclosed ST segment elevation on inferior leads. However, emergency coronary arteriogram showed no fixed stenosis. Intracoronary injection of acetylcholine induced a spasm on the distal right coronary artery, but not in the left coronary artery. In the rest 201Tl study, septal perfusion was low on the early image, although partial redistribution of this site was observed on the delayed image without the appearance of chest pain or electrocardiographic ischemic change. Similary, in the 201Tl exercise study undergone 2 weeks later, septal redistribution was diagnosed because the early image had decreased septal perfusion. Both the exercise 123I-metaiodobenzylguanidine study and the rest 123I-betamethyl-p-iodophenyl-pentadecanoic acid study showed inferior abnormalities on the early and delayed images. Although a coronary spasm was not induced in the left anterior descending artery with the acetylcholine test, septal redistribution was observed on the delayed image of both the rest and exercise 201Tl studies. The mechanism of the redistribution on the rest 201Tl study was unclear.