Coronary Vasodilators

Coronary Vasodilators assesses the state of knowledge of the pharmacological effects, the mechanisms responsible for these effects, and the therapeutic importance of classical drugs as well as recent medications on which experimental and clinical investigations are still too few to allow of definite judgment. The book is organized into four chapters. Chapter I is devoted to the influences controlling coronary blood flow. Chapter II reviews the experimental methods commonly used in pharmacological research with a critical assessment of their possibilities and limitations. Chapter III discusses methods recommended by clinical research workers for evaluating the effectiveness of anti-anginal medications in the patient. Chapter IV describes pharmacology and clinical features of coronary vasodilators. The substances considered are group into four sections. The first contains the coronary vasodilator drugs actually used in cardiovascular therapeutics. The second consists of sympathicomimetic substances which modify general and local hemodynamic conditions profoundly and thus produce increased coronary flow. In the third section are brought together drugs used on man for particular therapeutic properties which have coronary vasodilator action, uncertain in the case of some, and which, for various reasons, cannot be used in the treatment of angina. The fourth section collects together a variety of substances, most of which are not drugs, reported in the literature as having vasodilator activity at coronary circulation level.