Early detection of myocardial ischemia after successful percutaneous coronary angioplasty

We evaluated the functional significance of angiographically successful percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) in 50 patients before and after PTCA using an atrial pacing stress test. Before balloon angioplasty, 40/50 patients had transient ST-segment changes on the intracoronary (IC) ECG. After PTCA 14/50 patients continued to have ischemic changes on IC-ECG. Atrial pacing stress tests can be performed easily in the cardiac catheterization laboratory. Despite angiographically successful dilatation, 28% of the patients have inducible ischemia indicating functionally inadequate dilatation. Inadequate functional dilatation may contribute to early return of symptoms in some patients.