[Anomalous origin of the left coronary artery from the pulmonary artery in adults. Long-term follow up]. / Origen anómalo de la arteria coronaria izquierda desde la arteria pulmonar en adultos. Seguimiento a largo plazo.

Anomalous origin of the left coronary artery from the pulmonary artery is a serious pathology, that untreated supposes a high mortality. Usually it becomes symptomatic in early infancy, but some cases reach adult life with no symptoms. We report four cases diagnosed in teenagers and adults, three of them with the oldest ages known in worldwide literature and one of them the oldest reported until now. We have completed a long follow-up in the various surgical techniques, where we did not observe any differences in their prognosis, and we recommend an anti-arrhythmia treatment joined with surgical treatment in adult patients with this pathology.

Usefulness of exercise testing performed with vasodilators for predicting the severity of myocardial ischaemia during daily activities and treatment.

Fifty patients (aged 53 +/- 7 years) with confirmed coronary disease performed two stress tests (baseline and following treatment with vasodilators) and were divided into two groups: (A) fixed ischaemic threshold (n = 27), and (B) variable ischaemic threshold (n = 23). All patients underwent 24-h baseline Holter monitoring and monitoring following treatment with nifedipine, placebo, propranolol and nifedipine + propranolol. In Group A, 92% of ischaemic episodes occurred at heart rates similar to those found during exercise testing. In Group B, the heart rate was lower in 66%. In Group A, positive stress testing before the first 3 min of exercise, or at < 140 beat,min-1 with ST segment depressions > or = 0.02 mV, correlated with higher Holter indexes. In Group A, propranolol reduced both the number of episodes and total ischaemia time. In Group B, the best effects were achieved with nifedipine and combined treatment. Our results further emphasize the contrasts between patients with angina and fixed and variable ischaemic thresholds and suggest that therapy tailored to the physiopathology may be most efficacious.

Treatment of transient myocardial ischemia in patients with stable angina: a comparative study of verapamil slow-release and nifedipine plus propranolol.

We compared the effect of verapamil slow-release (VSR) and the combination of nifedipine plus propranolol on transient myocardial ischemia in a double-blind study comprising 20 patients with proven coronary artery disease and chronic stable angina. According to the results of 24-h Holter-monitoring recording, patients were divided into two groups: 10 patients with fixed coronary reserve and 10 patients with variable coronary reserve. The number of ischemic events was reduced with both therapies: from 12 +/- 10 at baseline to 3.4 +/- 4.0 (p less than 0.05) with verapamil and to 3.9 +/- 7.0 (p less than 0.05) with nifedipine plus propranolol (N + P). When total ischemic burden was measured, findings were similar: It was reduced from 104 +/- 196 min to 27 +/- 57 (p less than 0.05) with N + P and to 17 +/- 18 min with verapamil in patients with fixed coronary reserve and from 36 +/- 44 to 5 +/- 9 min (p less than 0.05) with verapamil and to 5 +/- 10 min with N + P in patients with a variable coronary reserve. VSR shows antiischemic efficacy similar to that of the combination of N + P in treatment of transient myocardial ischemia in patients with stable angina.

[Prognostic significance of the electrocardiographic coronary reserve in stable angina]. / Significado pronóstico de la reserva coronaria electrocardiográfica en el angor estable.

We've studied the prognostic significance of the electrocardiographic coronary reserve, evaluated by seried effort tests, in patients with stable angina and proved coronary disease. Seventy-three patients with stable angina, who performed 2 exercise tests (basal and after vasodilator therapy) were included. It's considered variable reserve when in the second test the ST-descent improves greater than or equal to 1 mm for equal or higher double product (43 patients) and fixed reserve when it doesn't (30 patients). All of them underwent to coronariography study. The exercise test was seried each term during the first year. Clinical follow-up lasted 3 years and we considered cardiac events: myocardial infarction, unstable angina, surgery, PTCA or death. Patients with fixed reserve had higher maximal ST-descent (2.5 +/- 0.7 vs 1.9 +/- 0.6; p less than 0.05), lesser effort-time (359 +/- 144 vs 430 +/- 112; p less than 0.05), and more severe coronary disease (score: 3.5 +/- 1.5 vs 2.4 +/- 0.8; p less than 0.01) as compared with variable reserve group. Unfavorable clinic evolution was similar in both groups (44.3% in the fixed reserve group and 34.8% in the variable reserve group). We verified that 92.3% of patients with variable reserve who didn't modify its character in a year had good evolution; 76.4% of patients who changed to fixed reserve had unfavorable evolution (significant association, p less than 0.01). We conclude that in patients with variable reserve, the periodic evaluation of the reserve character has important prognostic implication.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)