2007 Chronic Angina Focused Update of the ACC/AHA 2002 Guidelines for the Management of Patients With Chronic Stable Angina

A primary challenge in the development of clinical practice guidelines is keeping pace with the stream of new data upon which recommendations are based. In an effort to respond more quickly to new evidence, the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) Task Force on Practice Guidelines has created a new "focused update" process to revise the existing guideline recommendations that are affected by the evolving data or opinion. Prior to the initiation of this focused approach, periodic updates and revisions of existing guidelines required up to 3 years to complete. Now, however, new evidence will be reviewed in an ongoing fashion to more efficiently respond to important science and treatment trends that could have a major impact on patient outcomes and quality of care. Evidence will be reviewed at least twice a year and updates will be initiated on an as-needed basis as quickly as possible, while maintaining the rigorous methodology that the ACC and AHA have developed during their more than 20 years of partnership.
These updated guideline recommendations reflect a consensus of expert opinion after a thorough review primarily of late-breaking clinical trials identified through a broad-based vetting process as being important to the relevant patient population, and of other new data deemed to have an impact on patient care (see Section 1.1 Evidence Review for details regarding this focused update). It is important to note that this focused update is not intended to represent an update based on a full literature review from the date of the previous guideline publication. Specific criteria/considerations for inclusion of new data include: