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Elizabeth Rasche González

JAMA. 1980;243(4):309-316.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Without surgery, it was decided, the patient was as good as dead. "She was dreadfully afflicted with recurrent nocturnal anginal pains," recalled Albert A. Kattus, MD, of Inglewood, Calif, during the recent meeting of the American Heart Association (AHA) in Anaheim, Calif. "An angiogram showed a narrow place in one artery."

Although the artery was only 60% occluded, the woman was scheduled for a coronary artery bypass graft. It was all the physicians could think of to do. Unknowingly, they were about to make medical history.

The coronary artery had just been exposed, Kattus said, "when we suddenly saw the pattern of the electrocardiogram change. She was reenacting one of her episodes of angina. The artery itself was right there, before our eyes, and had gone into an intense constriction. As we saw it clamp down, we could feel it as though it were a tough piece of rope or . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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