[The coronary hemodynamic characteristics of patients with ischemic heart disease and unaltered coronary arteries (the diagnosis of "small-vessel disease")].

No abnormalities in the main stems and branches of the first-second order coronary arteries were found in 78 (13%) out of 586 patients with coronary heart disease, (484 males and 102 females). The incidence of coronary heart disease in the absence of coronary artery changes has profound sex-specific differences: 11% in males and 24% in females. Seventy-eight patients all suffered from exercise-induced angina pectoris of various degree. The linear velocity of blood flow in the coronary arteries in patients with normal coronary arteries was found to be, on an average, a third lower than in healthy individuals, and the volumetric blood flow velocity was twice less than that in healthy persons. Coronary angiography revealed a slow vascular filling with a contrast medium and its long-term washout and the absence of the capillary phase of vasculature filling. The findings suggest that coronary arteries can be involved in the bed of intramural branches.