Coronary artery stent placement as a treatment of acute coronary syndrome in course of variant angina

High doses of calcium antagonists and nitrates are the treatment of choice in vasospasm angina when no stenosis or mild stenosis is present. In ca. 5–30% patients this kind of treatment is not effective. We present five cases of variant angina with acute coronary syndrome in patients despite standard pharmacological treatment. These patients also did not respond for intracoronary nitroglycerine injection. They were successfully treated with stent implantation in place of vasospasm. Our observations indicate that early enough interventional treatment prevent myocardial infarction. In one case in which stent placement was performed 12 h after clinical manifestation myocardial infarction with Q waves and enzymes release occurred. In others, accurately treated with stent implantation, coronary spasm did not produce myocardial damage. We did not see any clinical and biochemical evidence of myocardial infarction.