[The antianginal efficacy of calcium antagonists in men and women at 60 and older. Approaches to predicting the effect of the preparations].

20 mg of nifedipine, 160 mg of verapamil and 120 mg of diltiazem were given to 53 patients aged 60-90 (33 males and 20 females) with stable angina pectoris and painless myocardial ischemia. Bicycle exercise tests employed to evaluate antianginal activity of the above drugs showed them to significantly prolong the period of exercise free of a 1-mm depression of the ST segment. This was true both for males and females. In females nifedipine produced the weakest effect. Anti-ischemic activity of the drugs appeared to depend on the presence of arterial hypertension and voltage signs of left ventricular hypertrophy, initial exercise tolerance and heart rate, blood triglyceride concentrations, left ventricular end-diastolic volume, the size of the left atrium, interventricular septum thickness, etc. To prognosticate the effect of each of the 3 drugs as well as nifedipine paradoxical action in some patients the authors propose to use classification trees, providing a significant branching virtually in all relevant points.