Silent ischemia during daily life is an independent predictor of mortality in stable angina.

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Abstract
We prospectively examined the prognostic significance of silent myocardial ischemia detected by ambulatory electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring during daily life in 107 patients with long-term stable angina who were symptomatically controlled on conventional antianginal agents. Forty-six patients (group 1) demonstrated one or more episodes (87% silent) of myocardial ischemia; the remaining 61 patients (group 2) had no ischemic ST segment changes. During the mean follow-up period of 23 +/- 8 months, 11 cardiac deaths (five sudden and six nonsudden) occurred in group 1, and five cardiac deaths (all nonsudden) occurred in group 2. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis between the groups confirmed that patients with silent ischemia (group 1) had worse prognoses during the follow-up period (p = 0.023). Although the higher incidence of hypertension, smoking, hypercholesterolemia, and diabetes in our patients might reflect a more sickly population of stable angina patients, the multivariate Cox's hazard function analysis of these and other variables including Q waves on ECG, exercise parameters, and ambulatory ECG findings revealed presence of silent ischemia during daily life as the most powerful and independent predictor of cardiac mortality (p = 0.01). These data indicate that, in such patients with stable angina, silent myocardial ischemia occurs frequently during treatment with conventional antianginal drugs and identifies a subset of patients who are at high risk of cardiac death.

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