Coronary Vasodilators

¹ Director, Cardiac Therapy Research Unit, Medical Service, Veterans Administration Hospital
² Professor of Therapeutics, New York University School of Medicine and Senior Consultant in Medicine (Cardiology), Veterans Administration Hospital

On the basis of the available evidence, coronary vasodilators do not appear to possess therapeutic value. A careful appraisal of these drugs is long overdue. The use of nitrates in the treatment of coronary atherosclerosis has distorted our basic thinking for many years. We hope our discussion will lead to careful, accurate and statistically valid experimental work to establish a scientific basis for treatment. Denial of the efficacy of nitroglycerin and related vasodilators has wide and important clinical, pharmacologic, and philosophic implications, the full exploration of which is beyond the scope of this article. The most important of these is the growing awareness that coronary vasodilation does not seem to be one of the therapeutic solutions to the problem of angina, or of coronary atherosclerosis in general.