Hypertension and Angina Pectoris

MOST efforts concerned with preventive cardiology have emphasized the importance of the coexistence of hypertension with noninfarction coronary arterial disease in ambulatory patients in the United States. A recent report to the American College of Cardiology indicated that 95% of all patients seen by practicing cardiologists have hypertension or noninfarction coronary disease. More than 50% of all deaths in this country today may be related to cardiovascular disease, with hypertension and atherosclerotic coronary arterial disease accounting for the greatest number of these deaths by far. Persistently elevated arterial pressure itself predisposes to development of atherosclerosis.¹Thus the greatest risk factor for most patients with cardiovascular diseases is an elevated arterial pressure; this risk factor certainly is the most amenable to therapeutic intervention today. The physician should review the major differential diagnostic possibilities that can produce chest pain, as well as those predisposing to chest pain of myocardial origin.²