Coronary artery disease with and without angina--two different entities?

Coronary heart disease (CHD), previously neither diagnosed nor suspected, was strongly suspected in 115 of 2014 men aged 40-59 years during a cardiovascular survey examination. Sixty-nine of 105 men who underwent diagnostic coronary angiography had pathologic angiograms. Twenty-six of these 69 had angina pectoris (AP) with and without pathologic exercise ECGs and 43 had pathologic exercise ECG as the only indicator of CHD. The extent of coronary artery changes was similar in the two groups. The men without AP were in almost all respects similar to 1832 men labelled as normals. The men with AP differed in several respects from their non-AP angiographic counterparts and from their non-AP angiographic counterparts and from the normals: they had more dyspepsia, a higher stress score, higher serum cholesterol and triglycerides, lower antithrombin III levels in the blood and lower blood platelet retention values. These results indicate that coronary artery disease with and without AP may represent somewhat different pathogenetic entities.