Stable Angina Flashcards
what do angina and acute coronary syndrome both involve?
Chest pain caused by cardiac ischaemia
What are the features of Stable angina?
resolves with rest in a few minutes
What are the features and types of Acute Coronary syndrome?
• ACS: does not resolve quickly or with rest – likely to get worse:
- Unstable angina
- Non ST elevated myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) (heart attack)
- ST elevated myocardial infarction (STEMI) (heart attack)
What is angina pectoris?
- Crushing pain in chest that may radiate to arm, neck or jaw ‘strangling of the chest’
- The pain results from cardiac ischaemia (referred pain)
What are the types of angina associated with an atherosclerotic plaque?
- stable angina
- unstable angina
What are the types of angina associated with vessels constricting/spasming?
- Prinzmetal’s angina (variant angina)
- Microvascular angina
What is the incidence, cause, triggers and relief of stable angina?
- Incidence: The most common form
- Cause of ischaemia Atherosclerosis of coronary arteries
- Plaque is quite stable, prevented from rupture
- Triggers: exercise, excitement, cold weather
- Relief: rest
What is the incidence, cause, triggers and relief of unstable angina?
- Incidence: rarer but more serious
- Cause of ischaemia: atherosclerosis + blood clot
- Triggers: unpredictable
- Relief: not relieved by rest
- May progress to MI
What are the two ways we can treat angina?
- Too little O2 getting to cardiac muscle. We can:
- Reduce O2 demand (reduce workload)
- Increase O2 supply (improve blood flow)
What is the NICE care pathway with stable angina?
- Offer short acting nitrate (relieves attack)
Optimise angina drugs
Beta blockers or calcium channel blockers
Then adding more drugs - Secondary prevention drugs (preventing progression of atherosclerosis)
- If drug treatment not satisfactory then you may consider surgical approaches such as stenting or through coronary artery bypass graph
What are drug treatment options with stable angina?
- Aspirin – to prevent platelet aggregation
- Statins: lipid lowering, prevent plaque worsening, e.g. Atorvastatin
What is first pass metabolism?
- Drug is absorbed by gut and taken to liver by hepatic portal vein
- Liver detoxifies foreign substances
- Amount of drug that reaches systemic circulation is called bioavailability
- For organic nitrates bioavailability is extremely low if taken by oral administration
What are the routes of drug delivery?
- Topic transdermal – applied to skin
- Parenteral – injection
- Mucous membrane
Buccal: mouth sprays
Sublingual: tablets that dissolve under the tongue
What are the routes of drug delivery important for organic nitrates?
Transdermal, buccal and sublingual most important for organic nitrates
What are the organic nitrates that are used to treat stable angina?
- Glyceryl trinitrate (GTN/nitroglycerine)
- (Amylnitrite)
- Isosorbide dinitrate
- (Nicorandil)
How is GTN given and what is it’s duration?
- Given sublingually, buccally and as a patch
- Avoid first pass metabolism
- Duration of action 20-30 minutes (sufficient in helping relieving acute angina attack)