FIVE-YEAR-FOLLOW-UP OF PATIENTS WITH UNSTABLE ANGINA: SURGICAL VERSUS MEDICAL TREATMENT

Among patients (pts) with coronary artery disease those with symptoms of an unstable angina pectoris form a subset particularly jeopardized with regard to threatening myocardial infarction (MI) or cardiac death (CD). We analyzed over 5.4±2.1 years (Y) the clinical course of 123 pts, who between 1977 and 1982 had to be admitted to the intensive care unit for reasons of persisting angina at rest. Within the first 24 hours no patient revealed a significant elevation of serum creatine kinase or typical alterations in the ECG due to acute MI (new Q-waves). During their stay in hospital (19±17 days) 43 pts (37 men, 6 women; age 58±7 Y) were subjected to bypass graft surgery, 80 pts (60 men, 20 women; age 58jh10 Y) were medically treated, 13 of whom underwent subsequent bypass graft surgery because of aggravation of symptoms. The table presents a survey of cardiac mortality and incidence of MI in the collectives with medical and surgical treatment during the stay in hospital and 1, 3 and 5 Y after dismissal (calculated according to the life-table method of Kaplan-Meier).

Hence, during the initial hospitalization infarction and mortality rate in the medically treated group indeed were smaller than in the surgical collective; however, after dismissal this beneficial mortality rate turned into the opposite in the course of the following years. In this group nearly every MI was fatal.