[Fate of angina in women with healthy coronary vessels. Retrospective study of 68 patients with a 42-month follow-up].

The discovery of normal coronaries on angiography in patients known and treated for many years for true angina, if reassuring for the physician, raises other problems about the evolution of the patient. Among the 235 patients seen with this diagnosis between january 1980 and may 1986, 68 had healthy coronaries without any associated disease (mean age = 57.4 years). The objective is to determine the evolution of this group with a mean follow-up of 42 months and the advantages of coronary angiography. No infarction or sudden death occurred. 91 p. cent have an unlimited housekeeping activity, 10 p. cent have stopped working for a cardiac reason, 55 p. cent continue to work, 13 p. cent were rehospitalized for the same reason and 25 p. cent developed extra cardiac symptoms (2 neoplasms). But only 35 p. cent do not experience chest pain. On the contrary, failure is obvious concerning the anti-angina treatment since only 10 p. cent are not any longer on medication and the total consumption did not vary. The fact that 84 p. cent of the patients have little or no pain under calcium-blockers, taken alone or in association with other drugs, raises the question of their true efficacy, without any placebo effect, since the beta-blockers consumption decreases slightly.