Guidance
This guideline covers managing stable angina in people aged 18 and over. It outlines the importance of addressing the person’s concerns about stable angina and the roles of medical therapy and revascularisation.
Diagnosing stable angina is covered in NICE’s guideline on chest pain of recent onset: assessment and diagnosis.
Recommendations
This guideline includes recommendations on:
- information and support
- preventing and treating episodes of stable angina
- drugs for secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease
- anti-anginal drug treatment
- revascularisation
- pain interventions
Who is it for?
- Healthcare professionals
- Commissioners and providers
- Adults who have been diagnosed with stable angina due to atherosclerotic disease
Is this guideline up to date?
We reviewed the evidence in April 2016.
The footnote to recommendations 1.4.11 and 1.4.12 was amended to cover the new advice from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) about safety concerns related to ivabradine (June 2014 and December 2014) and nicorandil (January 2016).
Guideline development process
How we develop NICE guidelines
Recommendations 1.5.2 and 1.5.12 of this guideline partially update recommendation 1.2 of myocardial perfusion scintigraphy for the diagnosis and management of angina and myocardial infarction (TA73).
This guideline was previously called management of stable angina.
Your responsibility
The recommendations in this guideline represent the view of NICE, arrived at after careful consideration of the evidence available. When exercising their judgement, professionals and practitioners are expected to take this guideline fully into account, alongside the individual needs, preferences and values of their patients or the people using their service. It is not mandatory to apply the recommendations, and the guideline does not override the responsibility to make decisions appropriate to the circumstances of the individual, in consultation with them and their families and carers or guardian.
All problems (adverse events) related to a medicine or medical device used for treatment or in a procedure should be reported to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency using the Yellow Card Scheme.
Local commissioners and providers of healthcare have a responsibility to enable the guideline to be applied when individual professionals and people using services wish to use it. They should do so in the context of local and national priorities for funding and developing services, and in light of their duties to have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, to advance equality of opportunity and to reduce health inequalities. Nothing in this guideline should be interpreted in a way that would be inconsistent with complying with those duties.
Commissioners and providers have a responsibility to promote an environmentally sustainable health and care system and should assess and reduce the environmental impact of implementing NICE recommendations wherever possible.