Background: We recently found that patients who had had two myocardial infarctions in different myocardial regions frequently reported different locations of infarct pain, whereas patients who had had two infarcts at the same site had a similar distribution of pain. The aim of this study was to assess whether a different location of anginal pain may help identify patients with a new stenosis on an artery perfusing another myocardial region as opposed to those with restenosis after coronary angioplasty (PTCA).
Methods and results: We studied 38 patients (59+/-11 years old) who underwent PTCA for single-vessel disease, with recurrence of symptoms requiring repeat coronary angiography during a 3-year follow-up. According to our inclusion criteria, angiography showed either a significant restenosis of the dilated lesion, with no evidence of lesions in the other vessels (n=26), or a new stenosis in either of the other coronary arteries, with no restenosis in the dilated vessel (n= 12). Before each procedure, patients reported the location and radiation of anginal pain. There was no relation between location of pain and site of the coronary stenosis. However, none of the patients with restenosis reported a different location of pain after angioplasty, compared with 5 patients with new stenosis (0% versus 42%, P=.002). Radiation of pain involved different areas of the body in 1 patient with restenosis and in 6 with new stenosis (4% versus 50%, P=.002). Overall, location or radiation of pain in a different body area had a specificity of 96% and a sensitivity of 58% in detecting a stenosis on a new artery.
Conclusions: A different location of anginal pain may distinguish patients with a new coronary stenosis from those with restenosis after PTCA for single-vessel disease. These findings suggest that in individual patients, differences in the location of cardiac pain may be indicative of the occurrence of ischemia in different myocardial regions.