Evaluation of Primary Care Patients with Chronic Stable Angina: Guidelines from the American College of Physicians

Association (ACC/AHA) developed joint guidelines on the man-agement of patients with chronic stable angina. The ACC/AHA then published an updated guideline in 2002, which the ACP recognized as a scientifically valid review of the evidence and background paper. This ACP guideline summarizes the recommen-dations of the 2002 ACC/AHA updated guideline and underscores the recommendations most likely to be important to physicians seeing patients in the primary care setting. This guideline is the first of 2 that will provide guidance on the management of pa-tients with chronic stable angina. This document will cover diag-nosis and risk stratification for symptomatic patients who have not had an acute myocardial infarction or revascularization pro-cedure in the previous 6 months. Sections addressing asymptom-atic patients are also included. Asymptomatic refers to patients with known or suspected coronary disease based on history or on electrocardiographic evidence of previous myocardial infarction, coronary angiography, or abnormal results on noninvasive tests. A future guideline will cover pharmacologic therapy and follow-up