Age-related changes of clinical features and prevalences of coronary risk factors in Japanese patients with vasospastic angina.

From among 899 consecutive patients who underwent their first coronary arteriography, we selected 147 pts with vasospastic angina (VA) and 356 pts with classic angina (CA) and divided them into three different age groups: -49 years old, 50 to 59, and 60-. In these 899 pts, incidences of VA showed no increase with aging. Prevalence of coronary risk factors in CA, such as diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, and obesity, was higher than in VA, although prevalence of smoking in CA was lower than in VA. In VA, we found an age-related increase in the incidence of smoking only, in contrast to the other four risk factors. The VA showed no age-related increase in the incidence of complication of fixed coronary stenosis. These findings suggest that aging and atherosclerosis might not play a major role in pathogenesis of VA, although the mere presence of atherosclerosis irrespective of its severity could interact with local susceptibility to spasm, leading to coronary vasospasm.