Next Steps

Follow-up

If a patient has stable angina, they will need to visit their healthcare provider on a regular basis to monitor angina episodes and assess if risk factors are being reduced.

The patient's healthcare provider will probably test their heart function periodically and assess the underlying disease. These tests will probably include the following:

• ECG
  
  
• Exercise tolerance tests
  
  
• Thallium stress test
  
  
• Repeat cardiac catheterization to see if the dilated artery or stent is still open and/or a surgical bypass graft is still open or closed. This is the key downside of both angioplasty and surgery: arteries, stents, and grafts restenose (occlude) with the same disease process of atherosclerosis. None of these procedures are a permanent cure. The patient has to be very compulsive in correcting potential risk factors, or they will return with the same blockages they started with.

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Angina - How Was Diagnosis Established

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