Does the presence of coronary collaterals protect against the development of asynergy or hemodynamic abnormalities in subjects with coronary artery disease?
The presence of coronary collaterals in patients with coronary artery disease does not appear to protect against ventricular asynergy or hemodynamic dysfunction.
In subjects with coronary artery disease demonstrated by selective coronary arteriography there was a progressively higher prevalence of both ventriculographic abnormalities (asynergy) and collaterals in one-, two-, and three-vessel disease groups, respectively, although no association was demonstrable between these two abnormalities. Subjects with ventriculographic abnormalities had more hemodynamic dysfunction when compared with those with normal ventricular contraction, but there was no correlation between number of coronary vessels involved and hemodynamic abnormalities. The findings suggest that although an abnormal ventricular contraction pattern is associated with hemodynamic dysfunction, the presence of collaterals does not protect from the development of asynergy or hemodynamic abnormalities.
Helfant et al. (Sat,) studied this question.