Patient Version

There is a lot of confusion about when angina patients should be allowed to choose the low risk options available in specialist refractory angina clinics. Many doctors seem to think that as long as an operation is technically possible it is OK not to tell patients about simpler alternatives. This is illogical and is at odds with professional and legal guidance on informed consent.

It is wrong that angina sufferers should not be told about simpler alternatives to heart procedures. Invasive procedures should be the last resort and for most patients and their carers the very fact that an operation is mentioned means that there are no alternatives. Patients wrongly assume that heart specialists only offer invasive procedures as a last resort. Patients referred to patient-centred angina clinics are shocked to discover that the only way to find out about the low risk options is to refuse to have the operation. Many patients agree to invasive procedures because they wrongly think it is life prolonging and assume that if there was a simpler alternative the specialist would have mentioned it.

Given the information and free choice angina sufferers tend to choose to have a diagnosis of refractory angina because it means that they will receive patient centred care and will be able to choose from a wider menu of options.

Diagnosis.

A diagnosis is a medical explanation of what is going wrong in the body. Most heart specialists focus on a very narrow diagnosis. What they want to know is whether the symptoms you describe is caused by blockage in the blood vessels that nourish the heart. They start with a working diagnosis based on the patient’s history (what the symptom feels like, when it happens, how it responds to GTN and other risk factors such as age, family history etc) but make the final diagnosis using tests which show up the blockages (angiogram or CT scan). Diagnosing blockages is a ‘disease-centred’ diagnosis.

Sufferers know that angina has wide ranging affects on the patient, their family and friends. Work and social planning often goes out of the window and these can have a major impact on the patient’s quality of life. In order to get to the bottom of how angina affects patients, the diagnosis must be widened to involve both the cause of angina and all the effects on the patient and their family. This patient centred approach is called a biopsychosocial diagnosis and it takes a lot more effort than simply sending a patient for tests or doing an angiogram. The big advantage of the patient centred approach is that it is greatly preferred by patients because it opens the way to a much wider range of low risk treatments. In practice, traditional cardiologists practice disease centred management and there are too few specialist patient-centred angina clinics.

Angina. Angina is a symptom and a symptom is a sensation of something happening in the body. One of the problems for angina sufferers is that internal organs (like the heart, lungs, bowels and kidneys) are very poor at letting the brain know what is happening. This is because the body did not evolve a system for dealing with problems with the innards. In other words, innards do not have built-in ‘warning’ pathways. Few people know this and it is not surprising that patients and their families commonly make major false assumptions that angina means something bad is happening. Most patients and carers are understandably anxious. Angina is bad enough on its own, but it is much worse if it accompanied by confusion and fear.

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This next bit is a bit complicated and it is worth taking your time over.

Symptoms arising from muscles, joints, skin and teeth are different. Everyone is familiar with pain and how accurately the source can be identified. The skin and joints are especially well supplied with special sensory nerves that have evolved to carry ‘warning’ signals. These peripheral sensory nerves are connected to specific parts of the nervous system in the spinal cord and these in turn relay the information to the brain. Brains assumes that whichever spinal relay nerve transmitted the signal it must have started at the far end of the corresponding peripheral sensory nerve.

Mistakes often happen and a common example is the tingling sensation in the little and ring fingers when you hit the ‘funny bone’ at the elbow. What actually happened is that you hit the nerve at the elbow joint which triggered the relay junction box in the spine belonging to the little finger. The brain merely records lots of signals suddenly arriving from the junction boxes are supposed to relay signals from the little finger, so you feel tingling in the little finger. Another common example is sciatica, where a piece of gristle bulges against a nerve to the leg at the point where the nerve enters the spinal cord in the lower back. The pain is felt down the leg as far down as the foot.

Angina happens when the heart accidentally activates an innards nerve which then accidentally triggers one or more groups of relay nerves for pain in the spinal chord. As with the funny bone example, the brain will decide where the original signal came from according to which spinal nerve relayed the signal. The brain doesn’t know there is a short circuit, nor that the signal started in the heart. If the spinal nerves for the arm or jaw relay the signal, that is where the patient will feel their angina. If the relay nerves from the centre of the chest are involved, angina patients naturally assume it is coming from their heart. It is important to understand that the short circuit from the innards nerve to the relay nerve in the spine is unintentional and random. This explains why no two angina sufferers describe exactly the same symptoms.

The experts who developed the care pathway all agreed the best way to make a diagnosis is to take a very careful history often backed up by an examination. Unfortunately this time consuming phase is often bypassed in the rush to do tests. At clinics who follow the National Refractory Angina Centre approach, patients and carers spend around one and a half to two hours getting to the bottom of the diagnosis before tests are ordered. In our experience up to one in twenty patients are incorrectly diagnosed.

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Clinical jargon version

Chronic refractory angina is a clinical diagnosis. It is based on the presence of symptoms of stable angina that are thought to be caused by ischaemia due to advanced coronary disease and which are not controllable by a combination of maximal anti anginal medication, angioplasty or coronary artery bypass surgery. The presence of demonstrable myocardial ischaemia is desirable but is not an absolute requirement for offering patients the initial stages of care. However, as the patient moves through successive stages of the treatment algorithm it becomes increasingly important that ischaemia is confirmed especially when high risk, high cost procedures are considered. The choice of investigation must be at the discretion of the individual clinician considering local expertise and availability and the level of confidence in the clinical diagnosis.

The original November 1998 definition of chronic refractory angina left open the possibility that patients with chronic stable angina might be denied simple and effective outpatient treatments simply because revascularisation was technically feasible.

At the May 1999 the UK national guideline group meeting it was decided to clarify the definition. The current UK national chronic refractory angina guideline group’s definition of chronic refractory angina is, “Chronic stable angina that persists despite optimal medication and when revascularisation is unfeasible or where the risks are unjustified.”

This definition was fully implemented at the UK NHS National Refractory Angina Centre in June 1999 and was formally adopted by the UK Pain society angina special interest group in March 2000. It reflects current best consent practice and requires clinicians to involve patients fully in choosing from all the available therapies the one that is best suited to their needs. In practical terms, this definition has little or no impact on the outcome of consenting a patient with a tight left mainstem, proximal three-vessel disease or proximal left anterior descending disease. It does have a significant effect on the process of obtaining valid consent for palliative revascularisation for which low risk alternatives exist.

Worryingly, in breach of current professional guidance on consent, some doctors think it is reasonable to withhold information about low risk options if palliative revascularisation is a feasible option. This approach is risky for patients and clinicians. In our experience it leads to patients undergoing procedures that they might have avoided if they had had an opportunity to choose from lower risk options. Failure to inform patients about the range of options available for their condition invalidates consent and leaves open the possibility for negligence claims.