Methodological aspects of clinical evaluation of antianginal drugs.

The principles of patient selection and designing and management of the clinical evaluation of antianginal agents are discussed. The study should involve patients with stable angina pectoris, history of anginal attacks of at least three months duration with five or more attacks per week, ST-segment depression at least one mm and anginal attack during the exercise test. Subjective criteria based on detailed dilaries kept by the patients and objective criteria based on exercise tests with cycloergometer, treadmill and atrial pacing are described; and difficulties related to final evaluation of the antianginal agent are discussed.