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A Problem in the Management of Coronary Disease

THOMAS W. MATTINGLY, M.D.

AMA Arch Intern Med. 1959;104(6):914-920.

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

Spurious heart disease resulting from an erroneous diagnosis and consequent treatment for nonexistent coronary artery disease is common. While spurious coronary disease does not result in death, it causes unnecessary restriction of physical activity and diet, expensive diagnostic procedures and therapy, and loss of time from work. It frequently produces a type of disability which is more detrimental to the patient, his family, and his community than true coronary artery disease.

Numerous factors are responsible for the origin and aggravation of spurious coronary disease. They relate to the nature of coronary disease, the patient, and the attending or consulting physician.

The incipient and subtle nature of coronary disease, the multiple symptoms by which it may be manifested, and the fact that if often defies diagnosis until an acute coronary occlusion occurs are features which produce anxiety on the part of the patient and overdiagnosis and false diagnosis by attending . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
Washington, D.C.

Brig. Gen. (MC), U.S. Army Ret. Former Chief of the Department of Medicine and Cardiology, Walter Reed Army Hospital. Presently Director of Medical Education and senior attending in internal medicine, Washington Hospital Center; Clinical Professor of Medicine, Georgetown University School of Medicine; Consultant in Cardiology, Walter Reed Army Hospital.

Footnotes
Received for publication July 9, 1959.

Read in the Symposium on Basic Problems of Coronary Disease Today before the Joint Meeting of the Section on Experimental Medicine and Therapeutics and the Section on Internal Medicine at the 108th Annual Meeting of the American Medical Association, Atlantic City, June 11, 1959.

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