Do symptoms reflect a change in left ventricular function after aortocoronary bypass grafting in patients with depressed left ventricular function?

Seventy-nine patients with moderate to severe left ventricular dysfunction who underwent aortocoronary bypass grafting between 1971 and 1977 had follow-up heart catheterization at a mean interval of 3 years. Thirty-three patients (42%) had angiographic improvement in left ventricular function at follow-up and 18 (25%) had a decrease in left ventricular end-diastolic pressure. Fifty-eight patients (73%) had improvement in angina of at least one New York Heart Association class at follow-up. There was no correlation between late improvement in left ventricular function and improvement in angina. Improvement in left ventricular function did not correlate with preoperative indices of severity of coronary disease or with indices of completeness of surgical repair.