[Exercise electrocardiogram in the evaluation of coronary atherosclerosis: correlations between electrocardiographic signs of ischemia and a coronarographic study].

We divided 51 patients (Group C) with stable effort angina into 2 groups: Group A of 30 patients without previous myocardial infarction, Group B of 21 patients with previous myocardial infarction. The aim of this study was to test the relation between some ECG signs of ischemia and coronary artery disease (CAD) severity and to propose a new simple angiographic score of CAD. The patients, after a pharmacological wash-out period, were submitted to a treadmill effort test and to a coronarography. Stenoses were quantified using a score system recently proposed in the literature and a new simple score obtained summing the coronary stenosis in percent. Significant correlations between the time to the onset of ischemia (TSI) and the recovery time (TR) with the CAD severity in Groups A, B, and C using both scores were observed. The total stress time and the new index obtained summing the total effort time and the time to the onset of ischemia were related to the severity of CAD in Groups A and C using both scores. The multivariate discriminant analysis suggested that the TSI is the most sensitive variable to predict CAD severity in our patients. A good correlation between the 2 scores was also observed.