Does histamine injection induce coronary artery spasm in miniature swine with experimentally induced atherosclerosis?
This study establishes a miniature swine model for coronary artery spasm, demonstrating that histamine induces spasm in the presence of atherosclerotic lesions.
Angiographically demonstrable coronary artery spasm could be provoked repeatedly by giving intracoronary or intravenous injections of histamine to miniature swine with experimentally induced atherosclerotic lesions of the coronary artery. The spasm induced in this way subsided either spontaneously or after the administration of nitroglycerin and was prevented by a calcium antagonist or an agent that blocks histamine H1 receptors. This model, which suggests that atherosclerotic changes may be one of the primary factors in the occurrence of coronary artery spasm, should facilitate studies on the pathogenesis of this condition.
Shimokawa et al. (1983) studied this question.