Systolic Blood Pressure, Heart Rate and Treadmill Work at Anginal Threshold

¹ Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of Cardiology
² Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Cardiology

Systolic blood pressure, heart rate, rate-pressure product and treadmill work time at the last moment of exercise in 189 graded exercise tests were examined for relationships with age and the pressure or absence of angina pectoris. Exercise heart rate and treadmill work time were equally related to diagnosis (r²=.33) and in normal patients both declined with age. Exercise systolic blood pressure increased with age and was not related to diagnosis. Rate-pressure product was unrelated to age of subject but was weakly related to diagnosis. No critical level of rate-pressure product was found, which would be exceeded by nearly all normal subjects and by few if any angina pectoris subjects. Thus it is suggested that, while rate-pressure product at anginal threshold has been found to be relatively constant in a given individual, its range of variation is too wide to advocate its use as a primary stress test end point.