Surgical therapy in acute ischemic syndromes

Despite increasing enthusiasm about the treatment of symptomatic angina pectoris by direct revascularization surgery, there appropriately continues to be concern about the effects of such therapy. While it is generally accepted that surgery is effective in relieving anginal pain in upwards of 80% of patients undergoing aortocoronary bypass, reservations focus on the possibilities that such therapy may increase the incidence of infarction (postoperative), accelerate the atherosclerotic process, and shorten longevity, primarily because of the increased early operative mortality. While these contentions may or may not be true for the majority of patients who undergo such therapy, there is accumulating experience that in certain well-defined subsets, surgery does favorably affect the prognosis of the disease. Patients with preinfarction angina constitute one such subset of patients with coronary atherosclerosis. The all-inclusive surgical mortality for 106 consecutive cases was 3.8%, and 86% of the survivors are asymptomatic. Actuarial analysis of follow-up data reveals that this survival rate is essentially constant through the first 36 months after surgery. On the basis of this experience we feel that patients with preinfarction angina present a therapeutic opportunity in which the ideal goal of preventive medical care can be achieved by early identification, study and surgery.