[Bicycle ergometry in patients with unstable stenocardia: its performance potentials and diagnostic and prognostic...

As many as 175 patients with unstable angina pectoris were examined. After the patients' status was stabilized by drug therapy on days 3-31 (after 12.5 days on the average) bicycle ergometry was performed in accordance with a standard technique. In all the cases, the exercise test produced no complications. 134 patients underwent coronary angiography to define the long-term outcome. The patients with ECG changes seen during the test and those with angina pectoris attacks alone without any changes on the ECG manifested multiple vascular lesions significantly more often than those with negative exercise results. If there were changes in the ST segment during exercise, the complications (myocardial infarction, coronary death, unstable angina pectoris relapses) common to the long-term period which lasted 25.7 months on the average were recorded significantly more often (p less than 0.01) as compared to the patients with negative exercise results.