How do doctors diagnose microvascular angina (cardiac syndrome X)?
“Cardiac syndrome X is a diagnosis of exclusion. We don’t have equipment that does microscopic dissections of these small blood vessels. So this is mainly diagnosed by symptoms. “To diagnose this, we try to bring on pain in a stress test. We have patients walk rapidly, so the heart beats very fast. If there is angina, we do a coronary angiography to look for blockages in the major arteries. That is probably what happened to Toni Braxton. If she had angina and no blockages in major arteries, that’s probably when they diagnosed microvascular angina.
