The Clinical Efficacy Assessment Subcommittee of the American College of Physicians–American Society of Internal Medicine acknowledges the scientific validity of this product as a background paper and as a review that captures the levels of evidence in the management of patients with chronic stable angina as of November 17, 2002





The American College of Cardiology (ACC)/American Heart Association (AHA) Task Force on Practice Guidelines regularly reviews existing guidelines to determine when an update or a full revision is needed This process gives priority to areas in which major changes in text, and particularly recommendations, are merited on the basis of new understanding or evidence Minor changes in verbiage and references are discouraged

The ACC/AHA/American College of Physicians–American Society of Internal Medicine (ACP-ASIM) Guidelines for the Management of Patients With Chronic Stable Angina, which were published in June 1999, have now been updated The full-text guideline incorporating the updated material is available on the Internet (wwwaccorg or wwwamericanheartorg) in both a track-changes version showing the changes in the 1999 guideline in strike-out (deleted text) and highlighting …

https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/downloads/bz60cz34d

ACC/AHA 2002 guideline update for the management of patients with chronic stable angina--summary article: a report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines (Committee on the Management of Patients With Chronic Stable Angina)

Positron emission tomography (PET) can be used with nitrogen-13-ammonia (13NH3) to estimate regional myocardial blood flow, and with fluorine-18-deoxyglucose (18FDG) to measure exogenous glucose uptake by the myocardium. We used PET to predict whether preoperative abnormalities in left ventricular wall motion in 17 patients who underwent coronary-artery bypass surgery were reversible. The abnormalities were quantified by radionuclide or contrast angiography or both, before and after grafting. PET images were obtained preoperatively. Abnormal wall motion in regions in which PET images showed preserved glucose uptake was predicted to be reversible, whereas abnormal motion in regions with depressed glucose uptake was predicted to be irreversible. According to these criteria, abnormal contraction in 35 of 41 segments was correctly predicted to be reversible (85 percent predictive accuracy), and abnormal contraction in 4 of 26 regions was correctly predicted to be irreversible (92 percent predictive accuracy). In contrast, electrocardiograms showing pathological Q waves in the region of asynergy predicted irreversibility in only 43 percent of regions. We conclude that PET imaging with 13NH3 to assess blood flow and 18FDG to assess the metabolic viability of the myocardium is an accurate method of predicting potential reversibility of wall-motion abnormalities after surgical revascularization.

Reversibility of Cardiac Wall-Motion Abnormalities Predicted by Positron Tomography

http://cardiology.org/recentpapers/sumetgl02.pdf

Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines (Committee to Update the 1997 Exercise Testing Guidelines)

I first read Davidson 30 years ago: at that time it was already in its 5th edition. A brief comparison shows that it then contained about 440,000 words in 1,100 pages: the current edition has compressed 625,000 words into 800 pages. I think I bought it as a student because it was cheap: but also because it seemed to be comprehensive and straightforward, and I have used it as a basis for my medical knowledge ever since. So I miss some of the old pictures of the acute skin rashes such as scarlet fever: in fact infectious disease has been transferred to the back and genetic factors take the first chapters. But careful linguistic comparison will still uncover the old phrases which some of us know by heart-there are minor changes such as 'alarming reactions to intravenous iron are uncommon, but have occasionally been noted', which becomes 'alarming systemic anaphyllactic reactions can occur'. Sir Stanley Davidson made 'no attempt to describe every rare disease or syndrome, but devoted most of the space available to those disorders most commonly encountered in practice'. I have grown up with successive editions, and have gradually come to appreciate the problems of the authors in the compression of knowledge. Having got to know many of them personally as real people rather than as names I can still recommend the book. It is the essential starting point for the study of internal medicine and for many doctors will remain their base reference work. The present editors have kept up-to-date and been prepared to prune the dead wood. There are many competitors in the market, and the publishers must take care with layout and illustration, although Davidson is still the best value for money. I will continue to recommend it to my clinical students: they will need to read it and know it to pass final MB. Postgraduates will need to remember the facts, but also to be able to place them in a broader perspective. The older consultant will still happily read it, and to get to know the authors themselves is really to complete your medical education. Dr John Macleod and his team have successfully kept alive the primary objective 'to provide a rational and easily comprehensible basis for the practice of medicine'. The book is economical in price and compact in size, but still contains the essential truths for the practice of good medicine.

Davidson's Principles and Practice of Medicine

ACC/AHA/ASE 2003 guideline update for the clinical application of echocardiography

SUMMARY
The usefulness of thallium-201 (Tl-201) exercise myocardial scintigraphy in identifying patients with multivessel coronary artery disease (MVCAD) and residual jeopardized myocardium after myocardial infarction (MI) was evaluated in 32 patients 3 weeks after MI. All patients underwent 1) limited multilead submaximal treadmill testing, 2) thallium-201 (TI) myocardial scintigraphy at end-exercise and at rest, and 3) coronary and left ventricular angiography.
TI-201 perfusion defects were categorized as either reversible (ischemia) or irreversible (scar). The conventional exercise test was designated positive if there was ST depression 2 1 mm and/or angina. Jeopardized myocardium (JEP) was defined angiographically as a segment of myocardium with normal or hypokinetic wall motion supplied by a significantly stenotic major coronary artery. MVCAD was defined as two or more significantly stenotic coronary arteries. “Significant” coronary stenosis was categorized as either 50–69% diameter narrowing or 2 70% diameter narrowing, thereby yielding, respectively, two subgroups each of jeopardized myocardium (JEP-50 and JEP-70) and MVCAD (MV-S0 and MV-70).
Clinical findings of angina, heart failure or ventricular arrhythmias during the late convalescent period after MI occurred in four of 10 patients (40%) with MV-50, five of 16 (31%) with MV-70, four of 10 (40%) with JEP-50 and five of 18 (28%) with JEP-70, and thus were insensitive for detecting MVCAD and JEP.
Reversible ischemia and/or a positive conventional exercise test occurred in five of 10 patients (50%) with MV-50, 13 of 16 (81%) with MV-70, four of 10 (40%) with JEP-S0 and 15 of 18 (83%) with JEP-70. All eight patients with both TI-201 reversible ischemia and a positive conventional exercise test had JEP-70. In 30 of 31 patients (97%) with angiographic asynergy, TI-201 scar was detected. No complications were associated with exercise testing.
Thus, 3 weeks after MI, Tl-201 exercise myocardial scintigraphy is a safe, useful, noninvasive tool for identifying patients with MVCAD and residual JEP and is much more reliable than clinical findings during convalescence after MI.

Detection of residual jeopardized myocardium 3 weeks after myocardial infarction by exercise testing with thallium-201 myocardial scintigraphy.

Forty-eight patients within 3 weeks of myocardial infarction underwent both limited treadmill graded exercise testing and coronary and left ventricular angiography. Nineteen (90%) of 21 patients with positive exercise tests (greater than or equal to 1 mm ST depression, angina, or both) had multivessel coronary artery disease. In the 27 patients with negative exercise test results, 15 (55%) had multivessel disease, 11 (41%) had single-vessel disease, and one (4%) had no coronary stenosis. Exercise-induced ST segment elevation occurred in 24 patients and predicted a significantly lower ejection fraction and higher angiographic abnormally contracting segment size. Patients experiencing angina during or after exercise had a significantly shorter 2-year survival (54% +/- 21%) than patients without exercise-induced angina (97% +/- 3%) (p less than 0.03). Thus limited exercise testing postinfarction is useful in evaluating the presence of multivessel coronary artery disease and left ventricular dysfunction and predicting long-term survival.

Limited Exercise Testing Soon After Myocardial Infarction: Correlation with Early Coronary and Left Ventricular Angiography

Near maximal graded exercise tests and coronary angiograms were compared in 37 patients with a history of chest pain and with ST segment depression at rest, who were free of obvious nonischemic causes of ST depression. Additional ST depression of 0.1 mV or more occurred with exercise in 26 patients and 23 of these had obstruction of one or more coronary arteries (sensitivity = 0.92). Eleven patients showed no additional ST-segment depression with exercise, and nine of these had normal coronary angiograms (specificity = 0.75). Patients with no increase in ST depression on exercise developed the highest heart rates; those with asymptomatic additional ST depression achieved intermediate rates; and those with anginal attacks during testing demonstrated the least heart rate acceleration. Those with less coronary obstruction exercised longer on the treadmill than those with more obstruction. Those showing added ST depression were predominantly men (18 of 26) and were older (mean 54 years) than those who did not (mean 44 years). No test complications were encountered. This study suggests that safe and effective stress testing may be accomplished not only in persons with normal resting ECGs but also in selected patients who have abnormal ST segments at rest.

Stress testing with ST-segment depression at rest. An angiographic correlation

Septal and left ventricular posterior wall (LVPW) thicknesses and their ratios were studied at the left ventricular outflow tract and left ventricular cavity in 66 patients with echocardiographically diagnosed left ventricular concentric hypertrophy, 20 with idiopathic hypertrophic subaortic stenosis (IHSS), and 34 normal subjects. Concentric hypertrophy was due to hypertension in 41 subjects and to valvular disease in 15 subjects. Septal thickness in normal subjects was related to body surface area (p less than 0.02). In 12% of normal subjects, 39% of patients with concentric hypertrophy and 95% with IHSS, the septal/LVPW ratio was greater than or equal to 1.3. Thirty-two percent of patients with hypertension, 78% with aortic stenosis, and 60% with aortic insufficiency had septal/LVPW ratios greater than or equal to 1.3 at left ventricular midcavity level. In conclusion, a septal/LVPW thickness ratio of greater than or equal to 1.3 is common in patients with concentric left ventricular hypertrophy and may also occur in normal subjects. A ratio greater than or equal to 1.5 may be more specific for genetically determined asymmetric septal hypertrophy.

Santosh Kansal

Papers

Detection of residual jeopardized myocardium 3 weeks after myocardial infarction by exercise testing with thallium-201 myocardial scintigraphy.

Limited Exercise Testing Soon After Myocardial Infarction: Correlation with Early Coronary and Left Ventricular Angiography

Stress testing with ST-segment depression at rest. An angiographic correlation

Interventricular septal thickness and left ventricular hypertrophy. An echocardiographic study.

Acute myocardial injury following aortocoronary bypass surgery